For World Mental Health Day: My so called anxious life

Tomorrow, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day. Wednesday, October 11th, is Coming Out Day for the LGBTQ community. Since I long ago passed that particular milestone years ago, I will come out about something else for World Mental Health Day.

It isn't really a secret that I live with a mental illness called GAD (generalize anxiety disorder). I was diagnosed with this about 20 years ago, but I should have known that something was not quite right way before that.

I can only speak about my experience with anxiety, so I will not generalize that my experience to others. But here is a glimpse of my experience. Having GAD does not mean that I just get a little bit more stressed out  than "normal" people. I could write a book (and may do that one day) about how different chronic anxiety is than how most people handle a usual amount of stress. But here is how I would illustrate my experience with anxiety.

Imagine that your brain is represented by a clean house. For people who do not have anxiety, I would represent stress as this quiet clean house getting a little dirtied up or noisy now and then. So for example, maybe someone leaves a towel on the floor in the bathroom or you forget to make your bed one morning. This amount of "stress" is annoying, but its manageable. It is relatively harmless to go pick up a towel or make a bed, maybe your kids run around screaming sometimes but ultimately it is manageable and people with regular anxiety  can resolve whatever is dirtying up their "clean house" There are days that a room gets messier than that and things start to get cluttered , but it generally stays  manageable. Everyone has days that they are more stressed out than others, but again it’s ultimately manageable.

Even as I write that description, I am envious of people who are able to handle anxiety in this way. Because  my dealing with stressdoes not work this way at all. Imagine my "clean house" as a small claustrophobic studio apartment. My clean studio apartment is often above a really busy noisy neighborhood. And when a mess happens in my apartment it is just one big pile of a mess that piles and piles and piles and doesn't stop to the point where it often feels totally overwhelming, and Sometimes I don’t even know where to begin for clean up.

I hope that kind of clears up the difference between chronic anxiety and gettibg stressed out. I believe my anxiety is genetic as it has been diagnosed by doctors as such, but I also believe situations that I have experienced  in my life starting as a kid to becoming an adult have added to my relationship with anxiety.

I tell you all of this not to get pity or for people to say sorry.  Because  the last thing a person with anxiety wants to do is think more about their anxiety. I say this all because there are many many other people in this world and country and your neighborhood who have anxiety about or a variety  other mental illnesses. And many of them, because of pride or lack of resources suffer in silence.

I have been very lucky because for the past 20 years I have had resources such as counseling and medications at my disposal for a relatively small amount of money thanks to decent health insurance. So many who need or may want help are not so lucky

In the last week, the USA  experienced a terrible mass shooting in Las Vegas. One of the responses from "conservatives" is to not even talk about gun control at all, and then they mention that one of the reasons these things happen is because of how we deal with mental illness and we need to do something about that instead of gun control.

While I disagree about not focusing on gun control at all. I do agree with what "conservatives" are “saying”about mental illness. We, as a country, need to take care of our citizens who have mental illness. However, really doing something abut mental illness required providing the citizens of the USA with better health care options which I know that most "conservatives" are not in favor of. So I must ask, as a person with a mental illness to stop using mental illness as an excuse to not talk about gun control. If you really believe in helping people with mental illness I will stand behind you. But praying it away and going to church are not the answer. If you really believe in helping people with mental illness put up or shut up.

For  anyone who has any kind of mental illness like me whether it be anxiety, depression, or many other forms of mental illness, please reach out to someone to help you get help. There is nothing embarassing about having a mental illness. When you sre physically sick, there is no shame in going to a doctor to get medicine or Physical therapy when t is needed. The same is true with mental illness. It should not be stigmatized as something different or something less than any illness.

Finally, I want everyone to know I have a pretty fun, amazing life. This is the case because of the choices I make in my life and being a bit lucky as well. But my truth is this: there isn't a day in my life, no matter how fun, or exciting, or adventurous, that I don't deal with my issues with anxiety. Every day I am keenly aware that I have a mental illness and that is also the case for so many people. If you do not have these issues, consider your self lucky and please consider open your heart and mind to someone who does deal with these things in their mind every day.