Hey, MisWired here. Today, I decided to talk about anxiety, fear, and paranoia, three things that I deal with daily. Although these occur in people who don’t have ADHD, I feel like it is more heightened due to my ADHD and Bipolar. Personally, I’ve never been able to shake them. Ever since I was 8, I’ve always wondered whether or not people like me for who I am, or if they’re just pretending. And with each passing day, my anxiety grew. As my anxiety grew, it gave way to fear, the fear of abandonment. I would always how long people would be around me until they eventually figured out who I was and just walked away. This fear made it near impossible to trust anyone or even let anyone get close to me. I could never take a person’s word at face value because, in my head, I felt like they would eventually hurt me. These thoughts, whether or not they were rational, continued to swirl around in my head to the point where my fears turned into paranoia. At this point, my emotional defenses were sky-high. I couldn’t trust anyone, wouldn’t trust anyone. People who tried to get close to me were immediately shut out, as I couldn’t risk getting hurt. And this extended to my family, as I slowly started wondering whether or not they had my best intention at heart. Because of this, I tended to lash out, not because they did anything wrong, but because I wanted to keep them away. I still do it to this day, and I know it has taken a toll on our relationship. It’s gotten to the point where I wonder whether the world would have been better if I didn’t exist. I had attempted suicide three times, and each time, I could never bring myself to follow through. Then high school started, and I was not prepared. I had just been diagnosed and in my head, it wasn’t true. So not only was I fighting myself, I couldn’t tell anyone I was fighting myself as I didn’t trust anyone and didn’t feel like anyone would believe me. I also wouldn’t do anything that would lead to criticism or wasn’t assured of at least a positive appraisal. And so the vicious cycle started. It wasn’t until my second year of university that I finally opened up to someone. When I finally realized that people weren’t as bad as I had made them out to be, I slowly started coming out of my shell, although I never did fully come out. Thankfully, I met a handful of people who were willing to help me navigate through all of this without being completely judgmental, although there are days where I do question their intentions. But so far, I feel comfortable around them to show my weaknesses, which I have never done for anyone else. Yet it still seems that some of my fears will never go away unless I do some serious soul searching. For example, I always find myself super anxious around girls my age and never seem to be fully settled around them. The ironic thing is that majority of my friends are girls, so I must not be as bad of a person as I think I am. Although, I’ve never had a girlfriend, but that’s more to do with the fact that I’m too scared to ask one out. All in all, I think that I’ve at least made some progress, even though I still have a long way to go. Do I still have these feelings? Of course. But I no longer deal with them by myself. Eventually, I will have dealt with them that I can open up to anyone and not just my closest, inner circle, but for now, its one step at a time. Anxiety, fear, and paranoia are okay in small measures, but not to the point where you’re not able to live or function. And I learned this the hard way.
https://youtu.be/9sxmw--LCgQ
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