I'm Not Rude, I Just Have Anxiety

I'm the flakey friend with whom everybody gradually grows to hate. You know me — the girl who disappears into herself when the mood demands it. This is what I like to call a "funk," or the overwhelming feelings of just wanting to be alone with my thoughts.

It's an odd concept for most people — people who crave interaction and connection to the world around them. Sometimes I really just want to be alone. Sometimes the idea of human contact consumes me with worry.

It usually starts the evening before, as I attempt to put together an outfit for bowling or drinks or whatever other awesome plans we may have made on a good day when I thought I could handle being social. I should probably wear jeans, I think to myself, and something so simple starts the inevitable spiral into extreme discomfort.

Nothing fits right.

All these clothes are ugly.

Why am I even trying? I am just going to be fat and invisible and uncomfortable the entire time.

I want to fit in.

What if I say the wrong thing? Or even worse, what if I don't know what to say? I am going to make myself look like an idiot.

I could just cancel. Say Oliver is sick. Or that I am not feeling well. My car could break. Like, really. Anything could happen.

But I don't want them to think I am a flake. I always do this.

I am such a terrible friend. I'm an awful human being. I don't even deserve to have friends; I don't deserve a social life. I just disappoint everybody.

I hate myself.

Sometimes I force myself to ignore my anxiety. But most of the time, I just cancel with excuses that people sometimes believe. Or even better, I just disappear without a word. I fail to exist. I am too embarrassed and ashamed to lie with some lame excuse.

I have missed good friends' weddings. I have missed my nieces' birthday parties. I have so often found myself completely isolated, without awkward invitations to do the things that I have to make terrible excuses to miss.

And despite this being my goal, despite the fact this seems to be what I want, I find myself so incredibly unhappy when it actually happens.

Sometimes I wish people just understood what it was like. I wish they wouldn't get so offended by my sporadic temperament. It's not you, I want to tell them, it's me. My brain is constantly scared, constantly controlling me with fear and no matter how hard I try to be different, to think different, it never seems to work.

I do not want to be consumed with worry.

I do not want to be overwhelmed by my thoughts.

I'm Not Rude, I Just Have Anxiety

It's not something that I can even pretend to control.

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