Whenever I write about anxiety or insecurities, it’s always a toss-up about what the focus should be. Since these things impact every aspect of my life, it’s hard to decide which avenue to go down. I haven’t written much about relationships, simply because I haven’t had many. But today, I’m going to.
The thing about relationships, for me at least, is that they seem to make all my insecurities and fears come to the surface. My anxiety is constantly third-wheeling us. My brain is always going. Everything that happens, big or small, will be examined inside my mind, over and over again, and it is awful.
My worst-kept secret
I don’t like hearing people’s tones change when they speak to me. I don’t like rereading text messages, looking for something that isn’t there. I don’t like constantly wondering if people are mad at me, every second of every day. I am torn between constantly needing validation, and not wanting to be annoying. It is so incredibly tiring.
I know that my insecurities and anxieties can make me seem closed-off. That is apparent in my body language and sometimes in the things I say, but all of this is a conversation I am not ready to have with a significant other. I prefer to not open doors like that.
I don’t like talking about how I’m nervous all the time. My anxiety is probably my worst-kept secret. I worry that talking about my anxiety is placing stress on the other person. It is hard to live with a mental illness and try to decide what to share. The thoughts I have are normal to me, but can be foreign to others.
How do you explain how something is so ingrained in you? How can you put it into words so that people will not only understand, but also believe you?
I feel like I look weak when I tell people, because it sounds ridiculous to someone who hasn’t been there. The things I do because of anxiety and the way it has and continues to impact my life is too much to explain.
How can I express that every single movement is something I think about? Something as simple as getting a drink of water becomes a 10-step plan, because what if my hand shakes? What if I drop something? What if my body looks weird when I walk? What if my mouth makes a sound when I swallow?
Then, because of this, I get self-conscious about eating in front of other people. With others, I try to stick to liquid-based foods like soup and smoothies, because those are possible to consume almost silently.
Relationships are new to me
I have lived with anxiety my whole life, but relationships are new to me. I used to worry so much about what every single person thought of me. It was exhausting. Now I care about what my parents and a few friends think. That’s it.
While the list is shorter and easier to manage, being in a new relationship means adding someone to that list, someone I haven’t known for a long time. It takes time to learn their likes and dislikes, and what they find irritating. A new person means new boundaries, and that can be very hard to establish without having a conversation about it.
In most situations, I know with 89 percent certainty that this is all in my head. But the other 11 percent exists, and it persists somehow more prominently than the 89 percent. To keep myself from completely losing my mind, before I enter any relationship, I remind myself that I was OK before and will be OK after, whatever after is.
I never want someone else to influence my happiness so much that if I am not with them, I can’t be happy. I have worked too hard to get to this point for that to happen.
As comfortable as I can be putting the blame exclusively on myself for the way I am, there have been some external circumstances that have shaped me in an unfortunate way and contributed to my shortcomings. I won’t express them here, but I do find it important to be said. I wish many events in my life had gone differently. But things happen, and sometimes you become so closed-off, it seems impossible to ever be open again.
Even though I don’t want it to, it all follows me into every encounter and every relationship. It has not gone away. After everything, you are left only with sadness and a story that you can’t share. The things people say when you tell them make you want to just stop talking. Sometimes things inside you don’t heal, they just manifest inside you and cause problems you don’t know how to solve.
There have been some wonderful people who have genuinely cared about me. I used to wonder why everyone couldn’t be just like them. I would put people who respected me on a pedestal. The bar I had set for others was incredibly low, for a long time. The other person had to show even just a bit of basic respect, and I would think they were the most amazing person to walk the Earth.
I am better with this now, but at times, I still find myself putting too much praise on others for just doing the bare minimum.
Trust comes and goes
The thing is, for me, trust comes and goes. I can take one step forward, and the next day, take three back. It makes things really hard and confusing for the other person, because what is OK one day may not be OK the next. I often wish I could just give someone a flash drive and they could watch a video of my life; then they would just understand it all and why I am the way I am.
I am way better than I used to be. I can be comfortable in so many situations that even two years ago, I would never have been in. But that’s hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there, someone who didn’t see how many steps it took for what looks like minuscule results.
During one of the last relationships I was in, the anxiety was almost exclusively appearance-based. Before seeing the person, I would get so overwhelmed while trying to get dressed that I would have a breakdown. More often than not, when I did see the person, I would be wearing clothes that did not show my body shape at all. I would either still be crying, or be spaced out because I took a pill to calm down.
This was also with constant reassurance from the other person, too, constant encouragement that they liked me exactly as I was. The pressure I felt was put there by myself. This shows up as problems with intimacy in every sense of the word. It means being hesitant to even hold hands, knowing that this can easily lead to something else.
I know I am not a naturally affectionate person. How can I be, when nothing about me is natural? Physical affection is probably one of my biggest weaknesses, and of course, that is a huge part of most relationships. Going to hold someone’s hand or touch their shoulder are not one-step processes for me.
My mind doesn’t just let me move. It feels like my brain just doesn’t know what to do. Trying to explain this is incredibly difficult, because I don’t fully understand it myself. Every relationship feels like a ticking time bomb, until the person realizes my shortcomings and then ends things. I know my lack of physical affection is directly tied to my anxiety. Normal, everyday things, for as long as I can remember, are not automatic.
Up until recently, I didn’t express this to many people. But on the rare times I did, a common theme was people saying that once you find the right person, everything will be OK. I understand that those words were meant to help, but a part of my journey is also realizing that I’m not Cinderella (sorry, six-year-old me), that I won’t one day meet the right person and everything will come easy.
This is something I have known, but accepting it is another thing altogether. It would be so easy to simply blame my shortcomings on the other person not being “The One.”
Being gentle with myself
I’m realizing it is possible to recognize my shortcomings and be nice to myself at the same time. I realized, for the hundredth time, that people aren’t perfect. But I also realized (for the first time) that it is OK, and that I can include myself in that, too. The thing is, sometimes people just don’t know what to say. A lot of the time, there isn’t a right thing to say. If words could fix this, I would’ve been better a long time ago.
I feel so lucky to have been around such caring people while having these realizations. I really do have a great support system. The people in my life have always been more than willing to remind me of my worth when I forget it.
My past relationships, though anxiety-filled, were great. I know now that I can be with other people, but I can also be OK on my own. There are still many things I need to work through, and I plan on doing that, but not with the urgency I once had.
While it’s true that I can’t just give someone a flash drive so they can watch my life and understand me better, I have seen my life. I’ve been here the whole time. And as long as I can be gentle with myself throughout the process, I’m sure that one day, I will get there.
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