“Ugh, I’m so anxious about my presentation.”
“Same. My anxiety is through the roof. I haven’t even checked my email yet.”

We’ve all heard something like that. Maybe even said it ourselves. And while there’s nothing wrong with feeling nervous or stressed, I’ve come to realise that anxiety is more than just a buzzword for being worried.

It’s not just butterflies in your stomach before a meeting. It’s a constant hum under your skin. It’s a quiet readiness for something to go wrong, even when everything seems fine.

For a long time, I didn’t even know I was living with high anxiety. It only surfaced through repeated psychiatric tests that measured my stress, depression, and anxiety levels. My therapist and I started to pay closer attention after that.

She once asked me, “Do you notice any tension in your body when you feel anxious?”
And I realised I do. I clench the back of my jaw. I hold my breath without knowing.

There was only one time I had what felt like a full-blown panic attack. This was when some parts of me wanted to go for therapy, while others didn’t. (DID things, you know?) My chest felt so tight I couldn’t breathe. I was legit gasping for air. That experience terrified me.

Anxiety doesn’t just make you feel scared. It makes you hyper-alert. It keeps you watching for danger, questioning every motive, building walls instead of bridges. Trusting people becomes a risk, even when they’ve done nothing wrong.

Stress, I can deal with. Stress feels like something I can solve. Yknow? Check a box, close a file, walk away. Heck, I can even let go whatever that’s stressing me if I want to.

But anxiety feels like a trap. Even when I tell myself to let go, my body doesn’t listen. It’s like being cornered by invisible thoughts that won’t stop circling.

That’s why I wish people could see that when someone says, “I have anxiety,” it’s not about overreacting or being dramatic. It’s a different experience altogether. It’s an experience that seeps into your body and rewires how you exist.

When people around me use the term “anxiety,” I try not to assume they’re misusing it. I start with concern.What kind of anxiety are you feeling? Because sometimes, it’s just daily worry, and what they really need is a calm conversation and a practical plan.

But if it’s true anxiety, especially that intense, spiralling kind, then the best thing to do isn’t to fix it. It’s to help the person breathe, ground, and feel safe again. Solutions can wait. Presence comes first.

Anxiety is also part of healing. Because healing isn’t a straight path. It shakes up everything you’ve tucked away. The fears, the control, the pain of what’s uncertain.

So if you ever find yourself trembling through it, you’re not broken. You’re just meeting parts of yourself that finally feel safe enough to be seen.

Maybe awareness begins here. Not in correcting others, but in learning to sit beside our own unease with compassion.