i can and i will

I’ve met this boy who asked me, if i want to go on a date with him and i said no. 

He asked me why and I lied. 

I couldn’t tell him that I’m suffering with panic attacks and that I’ve reached such a low point,that I just can’t meet almost strangers in a cinema or restaurant, because i would lose my shit and make a scene and I would scare him of.

I could see it in his face, that he tried not to look hurt or angry, because I just said no without any good explanaition. 

I know, I don’t owe him anything,but I liked him aswell and I really wanted to go out with him... 

just without the going out part. 

At the same time I didn’t want to invite him to my house, we just met and no, I’m not scared, but yes, I feel like it’s common sense not to invite strangers to your bedroom, when you're not into that kinda thing.

Long story short, we exchanged numbers and I searched for a believable excuse, something like that I 'm afraid of meeting a stranger and that I wanted to first get to know him a bit more, just to get some time and he replied, that he wasn’t such a fan of this idea, because he would rather get to know me face to face and see if the chemistry works, than via text. 

I get that, I totally understand that. 

But I was too scared to tell him the truth, that I wanted this, too, but that I just couldn’t do it right now or any time soon. 

I didn’t want him to judge me based on my mental illness, I didn’t want to be that crazy girl, I just wanted to meet someone without the panic disorder between us.
Depression is so much easier to hide, it's not less scary or exhausting to live with, but it is a quiet agony. It numbs and makes me stop caring. Panic makes me care way too much and makes everything louder.

He wasn’t angry and he didn’t just left, he was kind and nodded and asked me if I was also scared of other things and in general an anxious person.

And this hit home.  

I wanted to answer with "no", with a very clear, loud "no", because I wasn’t - 
I have never been a fearful person, I would have always describes myself as brave and adventurous.

But then I looked at myself and the last 4 years from a different perspective: barely making it to school, all the therapies and meds, leaving uni, coming back home, missing appointments and cancelling dates with friends - because I was so scared...or better said: ill.

Maybe I am wrong. 

Maybe I’m a coward, maybe I’m the biggest coward that there is.

But does it count, that I’m just afraid of things, because I have an anxiety disorder?

How do I know what’s me and what’s the illness?

Or is the illness,  after all this years, finally such a big part of me, that it doesn't even matter, if Lilian is calm and lion-hearted, when Panic!Lilian – who is out 23 hours a day  - isn’t?

How do you even messure braveness or fear?

Is it braver to stand up for yourself, to admit defeat, to know your limits, to push yourself to go to the supermarket or is it brave to climb a mountain and to travel the world even if you're not scared of heights or the unknown?

Am I even braver, because I deal with my fear every waking hour and don’t let it kill me?

Or am I a bigger coward, because I’m not scared of anything in particular, but of fear itself?

Is panic all that I’m made of? 

Is there nothing left of ‘me’ anymore? 

Or is this me and everything I pictured in my mind was just wishful thinking?

Which part of my is who i really am,which is the diseased part that i need to cut off, which part is who i aspire to be, will i ever be 'okay', and is there any part of me, that isn't sick yet?

Am i more than an illness?

Could i be someone without it?

Will i ever be more than that?

Anxiety itself is a coping mechanism, it’s supposed to save you from unbearable things and deadly situations. It’s a warning system, that tells you when to be careful and when you are save.

But it also can be your biggest enemy and a pain in the ass (let’s talk about that later).

Anxiety and panic disorder are like the contrary of dying. 

While depression keeps your mood and your emotions down, your whole existence becomes silent and ever part of you numb – panic lets you know that you are alive. 

It screams and shakes you up, makes you uneasy, you have the urge to move around and the thoughts are running through your head like you are on drugs. 

You feel everything intensely and all the time.

Throwing up, fainting, hysterical crying, hyperventilating, shaking,sweating, headaches, stomach ache - the worst symptoms basically without any cause.

Are you dying? Ebola? Food poisoning? 

Nope, just scared to death of nothing in particular.

And not just when you are faced with any kind of “””challenge”””” like getting up or showering, doing the groceries or talking to your family – nope, if you’re a pro you can get them at any given moment, even without a trigger!

It’s like an unpleasant surprise party in your body whenever your mind feels like it.

And if you have that for a few years, you get nice sideeffects, like blood in your poo because your digestive system is not able to cope with the”unusual” activity, gastric ulcer or any kind of inflammation in your bowel just because your body is not built to deal with this kind of terror every day over a long period of time.

Don’t even get me started on heart diseases, because your circulation will not approve on your day to day stress levels - which are higher than the stress level of a normal person sitting in an exam or before an operation - you heart has a lot to do: Irregular heart beat, feeling dizzy and (in the worst case) cardiac arrest are possibilities.

Another interesting thing is, no matter how little you eat and drink, you’ll be able to go to the toilette almost every hour, and losing weight becomes really fun, when you can’t keep anything in or down, you feel sick all the time, no matter what you eat and you burn hundreds of calories every time you freak out and panic.

The physical problems aside, you’ll get really fucked up in your head:
Memory is a funny thing, it will keep reminding you of the places and things that make you panicky and it won’t forget how awful it felt like. With time, everything will become a trigger and trying to avoid them will get harder an harder.

Everything in you room reminds you of panic, your bed isn’t a save place anymore but the thing you need to lay down when you feel ill and the floor isn’t just a floor anymore but the ground where you break down on, when everything’s too much.

You start questioning everything. 
Why do I feel so anxious? Is it because i can’t trust my boyfriend any more? Is this weird feeling in my stomach a sign that my friends secretly hate me? Do I even deserve this love? Maybe I need to quit my job or move, maybe something in the air here is poisoning me.

You become paranoid.

And you stop trusting yourself and your body. 
Have I eaten enough? Or have I eaten too much? Should I eat something differents than usual? Maybe I’m lactose intolerant? Maybe I’m allergic to water? 
I might have forgotten how to breathe? 
How do you breathe? 
What is oxygen? 
What are you doing body? 
Why aren’t you able to cope? 
I’ll break down any minute now. 
This is the end. 
I’m gonna die.

Anxiety and Panic attacks will control you. 
You won’t be able to think about anything else anymore, nothing will make you forget of this fear, that overshadows everything.  You will be anxious about being anxious an that will result in even more panic attacks.

You will feel like you are going out of your fucking mind. It will feel like you are going insane, you will be scared of your own thoughts and fear everything your body feels. 
You will believe that you are dying.

But you won’t.

And writing about it wont ease the suffering, but sometimes it makes you think you are forced to experience this for a greater cause: to talk about it, to inform people, it makes you believe that it isn’t as pointless and unnessary as it actually is.