Mr Anxiety

Anxiety didn’t exist when I was growing up.

Try telling that to 9 year old me, pulling out of the Christmas play as the lead part (humble brag). Try telling that to 11 year old me, physically sick from attending summer school. Try telling that to 13 year old me, always avoiding parties. Try telling that to 16 year old, vomiting on the way to school before an exam. Try telling that to 17 year old me, dropping out of college. Try telling that to 19 year old me, avoiding all social events at my job. Try telling that to 21 year old me, quitting my job. Try telling that to 24 year old me (yesterday actually), cancelling plans with an old school friend.

Okay, obviously anxiety has always existed (and existed within me), but until I was 17, anxiety = nerves. “My nerves are bad today, I’m feeling nervous, it’s just nerves, they’ll go soon.” Luckily for me, they did tend to come and go during my early and adolescent years. I didn’t know what anxiety was until I was 17, and vomiting before college most days. It was only then when my mum said “Well you can’t be ill, it must be some kind of anxiety,” that I first recognised the ‘A word’. Part of me knew I had something and part of me was relieved I had something. Because if this was normal, god help me.

More tomorrow or something. See you later.

Alright.

I’m 24, from England and I’ve never had a blog before. I’ve never even read a blog before. Do people still write blogs? Do people even read them? My mum still writes (with her hand and pen, yep) a diary to summarise each day. I take the piss when she hasn’t written in it all week and Sunday night rolls around, and she starts trying to remember what happened in the preceding seven days. She says she’ll go back and read them all one day. I admire her commitment and dedication to a daily (sometimes…) task that will, one day, provide a story of her life, from her point view, for her. Unless dementia gets there first, it’s pretty common now.

Why am I writing this then? I would say, “for myself,” but that’s bollocks. I’ve got Microsoft Word, I’ve got a pen and paper, if I wanted to write this for myself and only myself, I’d have started a diary. But we’ve pointed out the flaw with diaries already (dementia incase you forgot…). I’m writing this because I want other people to read it. Not a lot of people, a couple is fine. If those people think ‘that’s shit’ good. If they think ‘that’s funny’ good.

The bigger reason I’m writing this, is I wanted somewhere to talk about my mental health (selfish). Yes I know, who isn’t talking about mental health in 2019? Everyone has “got OCD” or “feels depressed” or has something “that gives me anxiety” or “is always here if someone needs to talk”. But I still think they is a gap in the market for 20 something year-old men. We’re shit at talking to people we know about this stuff, so I thought I’d try talking to no-one about it instead (or maybe one of you if you haven’t clicked off yet).

Well I’ll leave this post here for now. I would encourage you to leave a comment, but I’ve signed up to the free WordPress, so I doubt that’s even possible (thrifty, which I love). I’ll write another post tomorrow or something, see you later.