Feeling Anxious vs. Anxiety Disorder

So, I've come on here to sort of get out some of my thoughts that would take up too much space on Facebook. I want to address something that I've been seeing a lot of lately. There are a lot of people who are sharing posts/articles about what it's like to have an anxiety disorder or what not to say to someone with one. Which is good in a sense, I suppose. People should be more educated on the topic of it and other mental illnesses. See, what I just called that? A mental illness. And yet I think that 75% of the people I see sharing it, wouldn't say they have a mental illness. Which is why I wanted to talk about it. Everyone in their lives feel anxious at one point, or another (or 10). Everyone feels that nervous feeling that they may just... puke. And I won't take that away from anyone. But, that is not the same as having an anxiety disorder, which is what these posts usually are referencing (though some not, and they are part of the problem, normalizing it). Let me put this into perspective. An anxiety disorder, as per WebMD, is "a serious mental illness. For people with anxiety disorders, worry and fear are constant and overwhelming, and can be crippling." Now, anxiety, according to Google, is "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome." So what do we take away from this? Anxiety is usually a feeling of worry about a specific task/event. An anxiety disorder, is a mental illness that is constant (i.e, all the time). Another difference... People with an anxiety disorder, have a chemical imbalance in their brain (So yes it is ALL in my head thank you but I also can't just turn it off when there is something chemically wrong). People who feel anxiety from time to time, do not. That's a pretty huge difference. And that's why I feel like people need to be more aware of this topic. 

Imagine for instance, you don't drive. Anytime you think about the idea of driving a car your heart rate increases drastically. Your breath shortens. Your mouth dries up. You feel faint. You feel like you might jump out of your skin. You can physically see your shoulders shaking because of your uneven breathing. *(Also imagine every single person you ever meet giving you shi*t for not driving because they think you're lazy or don't 'feel like it.' Seriously people? LET IT GO!!!!)* Imagine you have those same exact things happen to you when 'perform' a task. Any task at all. When you have to do/say something with people watching. You're playing a game, you're cooking food, you're doing someone a favor, while someone occasionally watches you. And your voice shakes, and you feel your eyes well up. And your throat tightens. And it's not just once that this happens. It's a lot.  Imagine you left high school your junior year, because your anxiety was at an all time high and you couldn't be in that environment anymore, so you left, leaving everything behind. Imagine you went to therapy because of it, to stop yourself from becoming too depressed and thinking bad thoughts. Imagine that every single day, you take medication because without it, these things will happen almost 24/7. And you're not sure your body could handle it. Because it would literally tear you apart and beat you down. That's what it's like to have an anxiety disorder. Now imagine you have a big exam coming up. It's the day of and you feel nervous. Maybe you even feel nauseous. Your palms might sweat. You might chew your nails. And then the exams are over. And that feeling goes away. And the next day, you don't feel it again. That's anxiety. So please, when you share these articles about people who have disorders, think about if you have anxiety like that or it's just an occasional nervousness. And for those who don't think they have it at all, well hopefully you became more educated about it. 

* Hey who knows? Maybe someone reading this is one of those people, and maybe they won't ask about it every time they see me again. I understand the wanting to know, but people, you're not going to change the way I am. Stop asking.

Side note: I didn't just pull this all out of my ass. These all are my own thoughts, and if you know me well enough, you just might know that these are also, my own experiences with an anxiety disorder.