anxiety disorder

Husband saying he needs to talk to me about a couple things, or just “can you come here for a minute”, and it always makes me feel like I did something wrong. Turns out to just be asking for a receipt or for an opinion or a grammar check (which he knows I’m good at, so he tries to do his best to play to my strengths).  

This is what an anxiety disorder is. 

Whenever confronted (and yes, that’s also why I used the word confronted, because almost all of life feels confrontational), asked a question, put on the spot, I feel ganged up on, like a million eyes are pointed at me expecting me to say the right thing, with the right inflection, at the exact right moment. So my brain goes blank and I become tongue tied. Even if I know exactly what to say and feel confident about it, I think I’m going to get in trouble, get chastised, because I made the wrong call. Even when I feel confident about something, I can also be wrong, because I think other people’s views are right. (Not really.. this is the lie that anxiety tells.) And because I’m empathetic on top of being anxious, I don’t want to make anybody feel less important and I don’t want to create waves. So I don’t. 

This is what an anxiety disorder feels like. *whew. Dodged that one.