“Just” Anxiety

“It’s just anxiety. Relax. It’s not like you have a real problem.”

“Anxiety isn’t a medical condition.”

“People should not be able to have a service dog for anxiety. Service dogs are for people who have actual medical conditions.”

They don’t even attempt to conceal the eye rolls, the condescending smirks, or the ignorant comments about those who “claim” to have the fabricated diagnosis of “anxiety.”

It’s just anxiety.

I just went to the emergency room for the second time in three months because I was having bad chest pain and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The ambulance transported me to the hospital where I spent another six hours undergoing an EKG, an echocardiogram, blood work, and a CT scan to discover it’s just anxiety.

I just spent four hours obsessing over why my friend didn’t text me back. I just kept rereading my text message to her to make sure it wasn’t mean or could be interpreted that way. I just sat on the couch for hours while I tried to convince myself the text message was fine. I called three friends to read them my text message to make sure it wasn’t offensive. When my friend finally texted me back and I was able to get off the couch and actually start my day, I beat myself up for wasting so much time worrying about a text message. I binged for the rest of the day because I was so ashamed of myself. Thank God it’s just anxiety.

I have just been poking at my neck so much for the past two days that I gave myself bruises. They’re just small black and blues and there are just a few of them, but I felt a small bump and panicked that it was cancer. I kept poking at it to see if it was really there or if it was just anxiety. I searched “lumps in neck” on the internet at least a dozen times and convinced myself I had cancer. I kept switching up the terms in the search bar to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I sat on the couch with my phone in hand for a majority of each of the two days. I didn’t cook dinner either night. I didn’t clean my house either. I just sat on the couch crying with occasional moments of interruption searching the symptoms of throat or neck cancer and possible other diagnoses for lumps in the neck. After the lump began to dissipate and I realized it was indeed a swollen gland, I was able to resume my daily responsibilities. I’m so happy it’s just anxiety.

I have just been so consumed with fear and worry and I’ve been having a hard time distinguishing between rational and irrational thoughts, so I turn to food to comfort me, to ease that pain, to bury it so that I no longer feel it. As a result, I stuff bags of chips, sleeves of cookies, and boxes of candy down my throat consuming more calories in fifteen minutes than I should have in the entire day. After the temporary consolation I feel, I cry and panic about the pain in my stomach, the burning in my chest, the button that has just popped off of my pants, and the vomit I just swallowed because I couldn’t bring myself to the level of purging. I’m sure repeating over and over “It’s just anxiety” will soothe me.

After the binge, I just look at myself in the mirror and the almost 100 pounds I have gained trying to relieve myself of the pain and discomfort. I feel ashamed. I hate what I see and who I have become. I am so ashamed of my behaviors and my appearance that I feel I should give up and stop trying. Just as I am so close to convincing myself that going on that hike with my friends will be good for me, I decide against it for fear there might be uphill walking and that I won’t make it, that the fat girl will either be trailing behind or have to turn back. I’m so grateful this is just anxiety.

I shift focus and begin to think about our upcoming vacation. We haven’t been away for so long. The happy thoughts quickly fade as I panic that I will not be able to fit in the airplane seat. I cringe at the possibility of needing a seat belt extender. They do have those, right? Other people will see the flight attendant getting me one and I will be mortified. More importantly, my husband and son will see it. My husband will secretly look at me in disgust as he thinks this is not what he signed up for. My son will be embarrassed and secretly wish his mother wasn’t so fat. Maybe we should drive. I hate flying anyway. When that worry passes, another one emerges. What if after waiting on line for an hour to get on a ride, I am turned away for being too fat to ride? Maybe we shouldn’t even go. But my son will be so disappointed. How do I explain to him Mommy is too fat to do anything fun? I’m so glad it’s just anxiety.

For the past almost 18 years, I have had thoughts and experiences like these. I have struggled with all of this in some way every single day of my life. And, I am not the only one. Anxiety has led people to live in loneliness and depression. It has led to others developing dangerous eating disorders that may have, and already have, resulted in death and other medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, high blood pressure, and other mental health conditions. It has led to people dying by suicide. It’s not “just” anxiety then, is it?

When you say to someone, “It’s just anxiety,” you are minimizing what that person is feeling and experiencing. You are dismissing the severity of the illness and what he or she is going through. When someone tells me, “It’s just anxiety,” I just want to slap him or her in the face. It’s just a slap, right? It’s not like I punched her or pushed him down or used a weapon. She didn’t really get hurt. It’s just a slap. Just a slap. Just.

When you add the words “it’s just” before a statement, what you are doing is minimizing, dismissing, making an excuse, qualifying, and invalidating someone else. You may just mean that at least it’s not something serious, that you can’t die from anxiety, that it will pass, that it’s treatable. You may have good intentions. You may not. You may think anxiety is not real, that people can control it if they want to, that they are just taking advantage of the system. Whatever your position, when you add the word “just” before “anxiety,” all I hear is you don’t understand, you don’t want to understand, you don’t believe me, and you think I’m over exaggerating. All I hear is you think I’m just a fat over-thinker who just needs to stop eating and thinking so much. All I hear is I am not good enough or strong enough. Even if that’s not what you meant.

So just stop.