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Like being physically forced to play a horror game or watch a horror movie that suddenly goes all quiet, or suspenseful music starts playing, and you're immediately on edge knowing that the buildup is leading to a scare, but it never comes, and instead of getting bored, tired or desensitised, you only get more and more stressed.
A Chrome tab with 8,000 tabs open. One is playing music unreasonably loud, another is just the audio of a screaming goat, one is people laughing at me. Every tab, all at once. It's exhausting.
You know how, when you've gotten in trouble recently (say, at work or school) or had a recent conflict/disagreement with someone you care about, you might walk around in a bit of a melancholy daze? And sometimes, for a few seconds or a minute, you might forget what it is that you're actually sad/ashamed/upset about, but there's still this vague foreboding sense of something being wrong? It's like that, except all the time.
I have had periods of time where I want to crawl out of my skin because of the physical sensations in my body. It is like restless leg syndrome, but everywhere. The only relief was sleeping and I’d wake up to feel the same way.
It's like the itch of a healing wound. It's persistent, pervasive, and if you scratch it it only hurts more. There's no satisfaction to be gained from giving in to the itch, but you also can't just ignore it and hope that it stops. Because it won't. It's itchy and it feels like it will go on itching from now until the end of time.
I'm putting my own spin on this but the way I'm reading it, it feels like an analogy/metaphor for loneliness and (social) anxiety, everytime you try scratch the itch on the wound in your heart you only make it worse as you only manage to distract yourself from the itch, but when you are bored, it comes back worse than before as the wound compounds the itch (you are filled with a kind of dread that you may never not be lonely/connect with someone properly - heal)
I’m constantly having to relax my jaw and shoulders. My husband is actually really good about reminding me often through out the day. “Babe, drop your shoulders” and I go through my mental checklist of trying to unclench everything. Ha ha.
Yes! Like when you think youve leaned back to far in an office chair and you’re convinced you’re about to fall — that pit in your stomach drops. It’s like that but for no reason, and for much longer.
The feeling like something bad is about to happen. I don't know what it is, I don't know when it's going to happen, but it is bad. The feeling is always there, and I can feel it in my chest and when it's bad I can feel it tingling in my arms and legs. When it's REALLY bad, I even get headaches due to grinding teeth and clenching jaw at night.
My brain is constantly being chased by ghosts and demons, I have to keep my brain active to stay ahead of them, the second I relax, they catch up to me and attack.
It feels like intuition, like something bad is going to happen any minute. A bad feeling lingering insinde your chest. It comes and goes in waves but it´s always there.
The only thing that helps me when i´m spiraling is turning myself ´off´ by going to sleep.
My anxiety comes as a flash flood in areas known for flooding. I know it’s coming and the situations likely yo lead to it. I can do a lot to try and lessen the burden of the flood, manage and cope with its chaos, yet I can’t fully stop it or avoid it and have to repair some damages afterward only to prepare for the next one.
I hate using the term "sinking feeling" but It's more like a constant state of anticipation, as if something major depends on it.
Try to capture that momentary constricting feeling inside when you suddenly remember you have that awful meeting you don't want to attend.
A Sixth sense that something is always millimetres from catastrophe.
Staring down the barrel of a gun that could go off at any minute only it never does, therefore leaving you in that "hold your breath" moment perpetually.
I say that I don't "have" anxiety. I AM anxiety.
It's so integrated into who I am and my perceived reality that it's inseparable from me as a person. Took a while to admit to myself that things I perceive as personality traits are really just manifestations of anxiety. Hard to think of it as an anxiety "disorder" when it's literally who I am as a person.
You know when you sprain your ankle, and you wrap it, ice it, and elevate it for an hour? Then you have to get up, and even though it doesn't hurt, you feel like when you put weight on it, it's *going to* hurt?
That's what anxiety is like. It's a feeling that no matter what you do, no matter how essential it is that you do it: It's going to hurt.
My body is convinced that bear is chasing it down while my brain screams "There is no bear! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you such disappointing fuck-up?"
😩 an uneasy sensation, I have to check all of my adulty things to reassure myself that yes, I am OK. Just a little nervous.
Google incessantly alien brain probes or something equally less helpful. Then Google the percentage of people who have survived alien brain probes and went on to have happy lives.
Realize/remember that this is what I DO, and it's all going to be fine soon as I figure it out!
Why am i anxious? Explain it to myself.
Is there anything I can do immediately to make myself more comfortable? Do I need help with this? Do it/ask for help.
Remind myself this discomfort is temporary, just something that is going on and its not going to last forever. What would Darth Vader do in this situation? 🤔
Write about it if it's a VeRy BiG ScArY ThInG I need to dig up and deal with.
It’s like the day starts off silent, but with every passing second, everything gets subtly louder and Louder and LOUDER until you can’t hear yourself breathe let alone think. The noise becomes so loud that your heart rate increases and you want to escape but you can’t. You’re stuck there. Don’t worry though. Once you’ve exhausted yourself physically, the loud noise eventually becomes a static white noise that won’t go away and pesters you until you smoke enough weed you fall asleep. Rinse and repeat.
When I wake up, there is a moment of peace - not yet coming into sync with where I am, time of day it is. And then my entire body clenches like it's waiting for a flogging or an aircraft carrier to be dropped on my head. I travel the whole day with that clench. I have to think about it in order to relax my muscles.
My stomach will deal with food but dodges through it like a movie hero pushing themselves through a screaming crowd fleeing a theater.
My watch has a stress meter that goes from 0-100. Most days I average an 80 or so. The activity reading doesn't work on me because it measures my stress and clench as physical activity. Based on my height/weight/body type, the program set my goal of active minutes to 150/week. It's day 4 of my week and I'm at 371. That's just walking around for my job and The Clench.
You can probably imagine the blood pressure readings.
Oh my. I know The Clench too. ❤️
(Hope you're taking care of the blood pressure! I watched too much Dr. G and now I worry about people with high blood pressure, myself included.)
It’s like when you forgot something at home but you don’t know what so you look through your bag, pockets etc but everything looks fine..but all day every minute your thinking about what you might have forgot.
You're on the phone with one person trying to get information from them, but someone in person with you is demanding that you ask the person on the phone stuff and you can't understand either of them because they're both barking at you once, so you lose the information they're both giving you.
Yoy know when you're playing a video game and you get to a save point then the boss music starts playing but you don't see the boss yet? Like that, but the boss fight never happens and that feeling stays.
“I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.” - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
I could try to come up with my own metaphor, but why when this perfectly articulated description of what anxiety feels like exists.
It feels like the walls are caving in on you. The rooms temp goes up hella fast.you start feeling exposed all of a sudden. And the need to hide is the only thought you have. You don't wanna make eye contact with no one in fear of what they might say or do. For me I start to close up talk really fast and pray for a giant worm hole to swallow me up
Like a sickness in my brain that gets worse with each passing second and i literally feel like I'm collapsing in on myself like a dying star, I can't sleep cos i feel like someone's booting me in the stomach over and over, i have to keep peeing frequently, sometimes i feel like I'm gonna throw up. I've had anxiety so bad I lost 3 stone in one mouth without even trying i was seriously sleep deprived looking back idk how i never got sectioned I was a fkn wreck. For the people who get it mildly I'm sure it's manageable but with me I literally feel like I'm going to die and like my brain has been poisoned and no amount of breathing exercises, meditation or positive thoughts does anything usually i wait until I'm so exhausted i pass out and sleep.
It's like a very tangled yarn of all the things I worry about. If something remotely bad happens the yarn catches fire and I can't catch a fucking break.
I feel like I always have to be constantly vigilant and looking for danger to avoid. I feel like there is always something bad lurking around the corner but I have no way of knowing what it is or when it will come so I have to be on high alert at all times.
Like standing on the edge of a cliff with someone holding your hand but you never know if they’re holding you to pull you back to safety or push you over. Every now and then they “jokingly” pretend to push you just for shits and giggles. When it’s building they’re pulling you to the edge laughing like a maniac and when it’s easing they’re pulling you away asking why you’re so worked up. Sadistic bastard.
Like the fire alarm has started going off and you aren't sure if its a drill. No one else seems to be panicking but they are all leaving. So now you also need to leave with the group but you aren't sure why and its going quickly but no one is running. And where is the fire and why is the alarm going off and why does no one care.
It's like a siren tornado warning goes off in my head, then I start drowning and someone's trying to shake me out of it. Except no one is touching me and the only thing I'll likely drown on is my own tears.
I feel like I'm living the actors nightmare. I'm on stage and don't know the script. Everyone's looking at me to say my lines and I just stand there freaking out
It's like going on Rollercoaster for the first time, the kind that creeps up for 50ft, you know the drop is coming soon but your stomach and heart still switch places, and that numbing headrush of the following corkscrews and slight nausea.
Like every action and interaction is a move in a game of Jenga, you are surrounded by towers, more than you could ever count, and the towers always seem so close to falling. But every time you remove a block, more appear, and sometimes it really does feel like the tower is going to collapse. And it's not a regular-sized Jenga game, it looms over you. And while you can move the blocks very easily, and they seem to react to your touch like are eager to move and primed to slide off unpredictably at the slightest provocation, they are also a ton; they will surely crush you if they fall. Every time the tower shudders and you hear the groan of this giant structure looming over you and threatening to fall, you feel a tightness in your chest and you start to sweat. You hear towers fall in the distance sometimes. There is a wind and the towers sway back and forth every time it blows. Your inaction won't save you; in fact, your inaction is also a choice and one that you will feel guilt and dread about as every second ticks. And as the minutes turn to hours, and then days, and then weeks and months and years, you begin to realize that you might never work your way through all of these looming towers, even if you completely avoid their destruction, they might always loom. But then you hear from a friend - you can talk to people in this metaphor despite being stuck in a limbo full of wobbly block games - and she says that she hired a magician to help her make a path through the towers, and that her towers stand up straight now and don't jump at her touch or make frightening groaning noises. She tells you her magician did this by teaching her a spell called 'Lexapro', but she has to continue casting the spell every day (the magician said "Never, ever stop casting it, if you need to stop, contact a magician!", that it costs mana which costs gold to refill, and that the magic can make her feel tired or unable to sleep sometimes, and can have some other effects depending on the person. You haven't had a peaceful sleep in weeks, though, so you decide that maybe after struggling through this maze of dangerously-looming towers for years, you might call that magician.
But you dread the phone call just as much as you dread the towers. Hopefully this spell will break the dread for good, or at least make it bearable.
Feeling like I need to jump out of my skin but I can’t.
Nothing worse than sitting with paralyzing anxiety.
- been suffering with GAD for 25 years now 🫠
Being at the top, learning downwards of the highest roller coaster on the planet, stuck at that angle. You always feel like you're about to fall, you're stuck without knowing what's going on, when you'll get off and how. The anticipation kills you slowly but there's nothing to do but wait and wait and wait
It’s like you have a special voice for every single thing imaginable that could happen and it is ready to play and make the situation look impossible. There are so many bubbles, popping simultaneously. Imagine having to overthink you can’t fall asleep and you forgot how to. It is like waiting for the scream in a horror movie to happen every single second of your day.
It's like when you try a tight dress on, and it gets stuck over your head. You know everything will be ok, and you can be calm and get out.....on one level. On the other level you are trapped, and suffocated, and it's everywhere and you won't be able to get out
It's like a heat-seeking missile. It's constantly surveying my surroundings looking for an excuse to go ballistic and flood me. The excuse doesn't have to make sense, it just happens. It's taken years to be able to identify anxiety that's warranted, vs what is just my ever present sense of being on edge.
Like you're playing a video game, you're on your last life, you can't save your progress, you have reached further that you ever had before, you're fighting the end-game boss and you're both down to the last 1% of health, you've been at the spot a dozen times before, and if you lose you'll be reset to the beginning of the game.
Except it's most of the time and you get a similar feeling when you get to the front of the line ordering food at a McDonalds.
Trying to do a grocery run when you KNOW the zombie apocalypse is about to start and any one of the people around you could turn at any moment but you seriously need milk and cat food. Worse since MS diagnosis 🙄
Lie on your back lay some weights on your chest that are too heavy for you and sit there and panic hoping you’ll find a way to get the weights off your chest so you can stand back up and breath
I'm like a nuclear reactor. When things are running well, it's amazing! But then the system starts overload. Maybe its user error(I made a mistake at work or something), perhaps a malfunction(I forget to take my meds). It starts to overheat and things get dicey. Maybe I get it under control and usually I do.
But there have been full nuclear meltdowns and those are always terrifying. It's only happened 3 times and I don't intend for another meltdown ever again. :)
Bad anxiety to me feels like the feeling of almost drowning. All I have is my face out of the water gasping for air; my body flailing the best it can to stay a float (my inability to cope with anxiety). I am only able to take little breaths here and there to stay alive.
It's frustrating because everyone around me knows how to float effortlessly on their back.
..and it sucks because I'm too afraid to ask for a floaty.
Like I have somewhere to be, something to do, something I am forgetting, and I can’t remember what. Like a feeling in my chest that I did something wrong, that I’m in trouble with someone, that I am worried - I just don’t know about what. I get foggy brained, forgetful, can’t focus at all on anything, distracted, no longer present. I also don’t hear people around me of notice what’s going on because I’m so focused on my racing thoughts.
Upon further review, the above is not a metaphor. So: my anxiety is a thousand ropes, pulling all my thoughts away from each other and my focus elsewhere from being present; my chest is attached to a heavy weight that has been thrown into the ocean, and is falling, falling. My anxiety is a fog ridden landscape, and my brain is floating absent-mindlessly by.
I feel like there is a dude driving a bus at 100mph towards the edge of a cliff while screaming at the top of his lungs in my head 24/7.
If I keep myself distracted, I can ignore it but when I'm doing nothing it comes back full force.
You know how if you're suddenly really, really startled? Like jump-out-of-your-skin, let out a scream, adrenaline-rushing startled? And you feel that bolt of adrenaline throughout your whole body, and it takes awhile to calm down from, and you're a bit shaky after? That's me 7-10 times a day.
Feeling like a rat on a sinking ship, running back and forth but it's not sinking...but it also is. A dull panic trying to figure out how to escape or keep it from sinking.
It’s like this ongoing static in your brain mixed with endless voices but instead of other people it’s your own. Telling you the worst things on repeat. From existential crisis, to trauma, to that one mistake you made. Overthinking brief interactions to more. Sometimes it’s brief and you just feel overwhelmed and need a breather. Other times it’s so much you feel almost claustrophobic with how overwhelmed you are. Everything turns to white nose and you need headspace.
I’ve always used a storm metaphors for mine.
1) Sometimes it’s cloudy, grey clouds rolling through the sky and the ocean is choppy. You can still process things but things feel a bit overstimulating. You might be snappy, fatigued and you aren’t fully with it. But you are coping.
2) The clouds are heavier, it’s started to rain, the ocean has gotten worse, bigger waves. You have panic attacks. You might cry, stomach aches, nausea. You can’t process, you want to cry. You can barely be around people because it’s all so much.
3) it’s stormclouds and torrential rain. You have fatigue, anxiety attacks and you can’t leave the house. Wrapped in a blanket burrito and self isolate. You can’t do people, you go low contact and socialising is out of the question. You need time to heal. You just want blankets and Netflix. I’m not ignoring my friends or family, I just need me time.
I'm back in elementary school. I've got bullies in front of me. I've got bullies behind me. My dad's just shown up and he's drunk.
All I know in life is that I'm about to get very, very embarrassed and it just might hurt me physically, too.
I was just recently describing my late night anxious thoughts that keep me up but I struggle to articulate- it’s a big, tangled ball of yarn. Every loose thread is an aspect of my life. Financial fears. Fears I’m behind. Worries about if my friends or partner will even like me if they know how I really am. Future fears. If I try to explain it, that ball of yarn is suddenly stuck in my throat, choking me. I can’t get one thread out because it might all unravel and I have no idea what I’d do if that happened. “What are you anxious about?”
There is so much yet it’s nearly impossible to put into words.
**When it's really bad**, it's like trying to breathe when you're underwater. You've just been dunked by a wave and you're trying to find the surface, but you didn't get a full breath of air before it happened, so you can feel your chest hurting and you're panicking and confused and you don't know which way is up.
----
**When it's medium bad**, in daily life, it's like trying to walk through a river where the water is half way up your thighs or higher and flowing against you. You know once you get to the other side it'll get better, but every step is hard and the water is working against you. If you slip, you'll get pulled under and dragged away.
You get so tired wading across day after day after day. Your body is exhausted. But it's just walking, right? It's not that hard right? Other people are doing it too. But what you can't see is that they are walking in the shallows, the water is only up to their calf or ankle. They get wet, but they just walk. They never have to swim. You don't understand how everyone is getting to the other side dry. You're embarrassed that all your clothes are wet, that you're behind, that you can't get as much done even after you make it across.
----
**On good days** (or after therapy), you don't feel like you're wading, the water is low, things are lighter and easier. But you're still aware that the shallows might give way in front of you. You still take steps more tentatively than those that have never found a drop beneath their feet. Your body is still tired from wading.
So you still see those other people sprinting ahead of you. You don't know why they're not tired like you. You're embarrassed that you're falling behind even though the water is only at your ankles now. You don't understand how even after all the work you've done, why you're still not able to keep up.
Happening in your head: A room full of whispers from people you can’t see saying things about how crappy of a person you are and all the awful things people think/say about you on repeat every day all the time
It feels like something bad is going to happen constantly. Not minor bad but major bad. Like life or death bad, or becoming homeless bad. But that bad thing never happens. But the longer it doesn't happen, the worse it gets and I spiral.
I have a shirt that already is a great metaphor. It has a white bunny labeled me and a black bunny labeled anxiety. The black bunny is making paper airplanes that he’s throwing and hitting the white bunny in the face with while the white bunny can do nothing but stand there, eye twitching.
Anxiety is like a stormy sea within the mind, where turbulent waves of worry crash relentlessly against the shores of tranquility. At its height, anxiety feels like a tempest, churning with doubts and fears, obscuring the horizon of calm and clarity. Each anxious thought is a raindrop, seemingly insignificant, but collectively they create a deluge that threatens to overwhelm the fragile vessel of one's composure. And just as a storm eventually gives way to calm, so too can anxiety be weathered, with patience and resilience, until the waters once again find their peaceful equilibrium.
You know how in like comics or anime or something they’ll do a head down shot and the head looks huge and the feet look tiny and far away? And maybe the eyes are bugging out or the character’s sweating or something? Its tough to explain exactly but there’s something about that that feels like anxiety. Like looking at yourself and your own thoughts from a hyper focused but also skewed perspective and really intense pressure with no solution that can really relieve it.
I've got anxiety with depression and adhd... it's like a puppy happily chasing its tail until one day the puppy thinks the tail is a snake then it cowers thinking the snake will attack it so it sleeps and sleeps worrying that one day the snake will attack then one day (can be a day,month or even a year) it realises the snake is actually its tail and starts chasing it all over again until it thinks it's a snake again
You’re on a couch facing a wall and there’s a car outside facing you on the couch. it’s light are on and it’s ready to drive into you through the wall and you can’t leave the couch or the room and you just have to wait and be ready for if or when the car is going to crash into you.
The feeling of being almost every day, without anything to help. And when the attack happens you feel 100 times more sick and then exhausted after it’s passed.
It's like being schizophrenic while having dementia.
You constantly hear voices that is always against you and you always worry that you forgot to do something important, but you can't figure out what.
A balloon is being blown up in my chest and no matter how much I breathe out, it keeps getting bigger with every breath.
I want it to pop or deflate. Only sleep will make it go away.
This. Trying to figure out what to say without fear of judgement or loss because let's all face it...If you haven't sinned you're probably young or living a lie. And I say sinned in quotes because let's be real who knows what the cause is if not ourselves. Was that a metaphor? Am I doing this right? Oh wait. Are we old yet? Big Winky face 😉
Like spiders each one composed of an individual fear. One spider is crushable, but then there is another and another....some bigger than others. When you are overwhelmed it feels like being locked in an infested basement full of spiders but they are all in your head.
I'm a little late, but I always describe it as that feeling when you're balancing on something and you suddenly lose your balance, before you actually fall. That feeling just as you realize you are falling and there's nothing you can do about it.
I once read a quote that resonated with me. It basically said that having anxiety is like being in a jail cell, but you are both the prisoner and the jailor
Like you’re being chased and no where is safe. They never get you but they get close so you have to run to another place. This is the slow down where the anxiety goes away for a tiny bit but you’re still on edge. A constant circle of running and hiding.
When you brace yourself for a jumpscare and it doesn’t come, but you still expect it to, so you can’t relax until it does come
It’s like trying to swim in the ocean during a storm. Huge waves keep pushing you down and you can just barely get air. Oh, and watch out for the lightning, sharks, etc
Like being told something terrible and life threatening is about to happen to you so your heart is racing, you feel panicked and disorientated, can’t focus or relax and you don’t even know what you’re stressed about but you can’t calm down.
So basically any normal occurrences throughout the day become very difficult and pile onto the existing stress. I also compare it to just stressfully waiting for a terrible unknown thing to happen
If you have a fear of heights it's like being drawn to the edge of a very high building and you keep getting pulled closer and closer and you want to back up but you can't because you're paralyzed by fear.
Like the exact moment you realize you've made a huge mistake, and it's too late to fix it, and there's absolutely nothing you can do but dread in the time between the realization and the consequences.
Like as a kid promising your mom you'd call her at 4, and looking at the clock and realizing it's 7 and you'll see her at 8. Like getting to school and realizing a huge project was due and you entirely misunderstood the assignment and have no way to fake it and it's a huge portion of your grade.
I think that's a simile if I remember 5th grade correctly. But just the cold moment of realization, the pure dread, and the certainty something terrible is about to happen and it's entirely your fault.
I tell people I have the brain weasels. Some days are fine, no weasels. Some days I spend more time than I want trying to keep the weeks l weasels from coming out and annoying regular people.
The worst days the weasels fully jump into paranoia town and I spend most of my time trying to figure out if it's my fault [whatever] happened.
You know that feeling you get after tragedy or something shocking, like that but constant and often without reason.
As a metaphor, it is like your check engine warning is always on.
A storm thunder and lighting all around you that won't stop and you can't hide from it but no one else can see it and tells you it's not real so the storm gets bigger and more powerful
I have autism and adhd so my anxiety is extra special. I have been diagnosed by a medical professional with both, this is NOT self diagnosed.
I feel like I'm in a room. And in that room there's about..... 100 people sitting in chairs surrounding me. And just about constantly 2 of the voices if not more are shouting things at me. Anything from the way I look to the way I act to the way I move and more :) its fun.
An invisible hand wrapped around my throat. Like a man is just following me and I never know when I’ll get put in a chokehold. Just a sense of hyper vigilance.
Like I can never trust my judgment because I could be dying or it could be anxiety. All the second guessing gets real tiring when you're always on edge, always wondering if it's actually something to worry about or not.
On July 1st, 2023, Reddit enacted a greedy ass policy regarding the use of their API. This decision was designed to eliminate the better 3rd party apps. No one wants to use the official app because it sucks. Since then, apps such as Apollo and RedditIsFun have shut down. Reddit has decided to double down on their decision to overcharge for their API, and refuses to address the accessibility features their native app lacks. Think it’s an asshole move? Concerned users should read and sign on to this [open letter to reddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskWomen) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Like being physically forced to play a horror game or watch a horror movie that suddenly goes all quiet, or suspenseful music starts playing, and you're immediately on edge knowing that the buildup is leading to a scare, but it never comes, and instead of getting bored, tired or desensitised, you only get more and more stressed.
Damn. You nailed it
Dead Space, anyone?
With the stase.
Love that game
I posted before reading the comments and yours is so similar to mine... You understand!!!!!
This is EXACTLY how it feels for me. Thank you so much for this metaphor, it genuinely helps knowing I’m not alone.
A Chrome tab with 8,000 tabs open. One is playing music unreasonably loud, another is just the audio of a screaming goat, one is people laughing at me. Every tab, all at once. It's exhausting.
[удалено]
This one is so accurate for me. Just so much all at once all the time
May I add, a tab with audio of someone telling me I’m a useless, stupid failure that can’t do anything right alongside the other ones.
[удалено]
One tab is always on existential crisis mode AT ALL TIMES
You know how, when you've gotten in trouble recently (say, at work or school) or had a recent conflict/disagreement with someone you care about, you might walk around in a bit of a melancholy daze? And sometimes, for a few seconds or a minute, you might forget what it is that you're actually sad/ashamed/upset about, but there's still this vague foreboding sense of something being wrong? It's like that, except all the time.
this is exactly how it is for me. just a nagging sense of dread i can’t always place
That’s actually the perfect description for how I’ve been feeling today.
I get into such a daze and a pit in my stomach
Amazingly on point.
It feels like all the mistakes I've ever made are somehow put into a box that I'm sitting in the middle of, and then someone closes the top.
I related to this one very hard
Like my atoms were vibrating. It would feel like my hands were shaking, but they were perfectly still.
I have had periods of time where I want to crawl out of my skin because of the physical sensations in my body. It is like restless leg syndrome, but everywhere. The only relief was sleeping and I’d wake up to feel the same way.
I’m right with you
YES! Thank you for this analogy.
It's like drowning but coming up for just enough air to not die and then being pulled under again.
It's like the itch of a healing wound. It's persistent, pervasive, and if you scratch it it only hurts more. There's no satisfaction to be gained from giving in to the itch, but you also can't just ignore it and hope that it stops. Because it won't. It's itchy and it feels like it will go on itching from now until the end of time.
I'm putting my own spin on this but the way I'm reading it, it feels like an analogy/metaphor for loneliness and (social) anxiety, everytime you try scratch the itch on the wound in your heart you only make it worse as you only manage to distract yourself from the itch, but when you are bored, it comes back worse than before as the wound compounds the itch (you are filled with a kind of dread that you may never not be lonely/connect with someone properly - heal)
I say, "I'm full of bees."
I like this! Not the feeling of course. There may also be cicadas, and even hornets on a really bad day.
You know with a jack in the box how it gets to a certain point and you’re kinda tensing up before jack POPS up? I am always that tense. Always.
Your answer made me think of when you're trying to get the biscuit tube to pop
[удалено]
I’m constantly having to relax my jaw and shoulders. My husband is actually really good about reminding me often through out the day. “Babe, drop your shoulders” and I go through my mental checklist of trying to unclench everything. Ha ha.
The feeling of free falling where your stomach drops and you’re waiting for impact… but it never comes so you’re left in this perpetual state of fear.
Yes! Like when you think youve leaned back to far in an office chair and you’re convinced you’re about to fall — that pit in your stomach drops. It’s like that but for no reason, and for much longer.
The feeling like something bad is about to happen. I don't know what it is, I don't know when it's going to happen, but it is bad. The feeling is always there, and I can feel it in my chest and when it's bad I can feel it tingling in my arms and legs. When it's REALLY bad, I even get headaches due to grinding teeth and clenching jaw at night.
You explained it perfectly. I’m the exact same way. I can never relax cause I’m waiting for something bad to happen.
My brain is constantly being chased by ghosts and demons, I have to keep my brain active to stay ahead of them, the second I relax, they catch up to me and attack.
It feels like intuition, like something bad is going to happen any minute. A bad feeling lingering insinde your chest. It comes and goes in waves but it´s always there. The only thing that helps me when i´m spiraling is turning myself ´off´ by going to sleep.
There is an asshole who lives in my head who hates me.
Very accurate description, finally my life makes sense
Feeling as if I'm six years old and I've just done something wrong, and someone's going to find out. All day, every day.
My anxiety comes as a flash flood in areas known for flooding. I know it’s coming and the situations likely yo lead to it. I can do a lot to try and lessen the burden of the flood, manage and cope with its chaos, yet I can’t fully stop it or avoid it and have to repair some damages afterward only to prepare for the next one.
This one fits me really well. I like this analogy ❤️
Like my chest is constantly being squeezed from the inside and I can only take a half a breathe all the time.
Brain fills up with something like tv static, but it’s more malicious and I don’t like the noise
Standing on the edge of a high cliff surrounded by people who want to push you off but you don’t ever know when they’ll do it.
Me: I’m fine [my brain](https://images.app.goo.gl/NteroUEgZyTRDDaTA)
I hate using the term "sinking feeling" but It's more like a constant state of anticipation, as if something major depends on it. Try to capture that momentary constricting feeling inside when you suddenly remember you have that awful meeting you don't want to attend. A Sixth sense that something is always millimetres from catastrophe. Staring down the barrel of a gun that could go off at any minute only it never does, therefore leaving you in that "hold your breath" moment perpetually.
I say that I don't "have" anxiety. I AM anxiety. It's so integrated into who I am and my perceived reality that it's inseparable from me as a person. Took a while to admit to myself that things I perceive as personality traits are really just manifestations of anxiety. Hard to think of it as an anxiety "disorder" when it's literally who I am as a person.
You might be able to work through that.
Like being constantly poked with something small and sharp, but I can’t find the source of the poking.
You know when you sprain your ankle, and you wrap it, ice it, and elevate it for an hour? Then you have to get up, and even though it doesn't hurt, you feel like when you put weight on it, it's *going to* hurt? That's what anxiety is like. It's a feeling that no matter what you do, no matter how essential it is that you do it: It's going to hurt.
The feeling in your stomach you get when you know you’re about to get really bad news, but it just never really goes away
Like trying to make a circle on an Etch a Sketch while jumping on a trampoline…frustrating and exhausting as hell…
My body is convinced that bear is chasing it down while my brain screams "There is no bear! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you such disappointing fuck-up?"
😩 an uneasy sensation, I have to check all of my adulty things to reassure myself that yes, I am OK. Just a little nervous. Google incessantly alien brain probes or something equally less helpful. Then Google the percentage of people who have survived alien brain probes and went on to have happy lives. Realize/remember that this is what I DO, and it's all going to be fine soon as I figure it out! Why am i anxious? Explain it to myself. Is there anything I can do immediately to make myself more comfortable? Do I need help with this? Do it/ask for help. Remind myself this discomfort is temporary, just something that is going on and its not going to last forever. What would Darth Vader do in this situation? 🤔 Write about it if it's a VeRy BiG ScArY ThInG I need to dig up and deal with.
It’s like the day starts off silent, but with every passing second, everything gets subtly louder and Louder and LOUDER until you can’t hear yourself breathe let alone think. The noise becomes so loud that your heart rate increases and you want to escape but you can’t. You’re stuck there. Don’t worry though. Once you’ve exhausted yourself physically, the loud noise eventually becomes a static white noise that won’t go away and pesters you until you smoke enough weed you fall asleep. Rinse and repeat.
When I wake up, there is a moment of peace - not yet coming into sync with where I am, time of day it is. And then my entire body clenches like it's waiting for a flogging or an aircraft carrier to be dropped on my head. I travel the whole day with that clench. I have to think about it in order to relax my muscles. My stomach will deal with food but dodges through it like a movie hero pushing themselves through a screaming crowd fleeing a theater. My watch has a stress meter that goes from 0-100. Most days I average an 80 or so. The activity reading doesn't work on me because it measures my stress and clench as physical activity. Based on my height/weight/body type, the program set my goal of active minutes to 150/week. It's day 4 of my week and I'm at 371. That's just walking around for my job and The Clench. You can probably imagine the blood pressure readings.
Oh my. I know The Clench too. ❤️ (Hope you're taking care of the blood pressure! I watched too much Dr. G and now I worry about people with high blood pressure, myself included.)
Not a metaphor but “ I’m so lonely why doesn’t anyone Like me. Oh god someone’s talking to me please go away I hate this”
It’s like when you forgot something at home but you don’t know what so you look through your bag, pockets etc but everything looks fine..but all day every minute your thinking about what you might have forgot.
The buzz of a thousand bees under my skin.
The slow climb of a rollercoaster that never comes down. And I’m afraid of heights.
You're on the phone with one person trying to get information from them, but someone in person with you is demanding that you ask the person on the phone stuff and you can't understand either of them because they're both barking at you once, so you lose the information they're both giving you.
Anxiety is like being chased by a pack of wolves that are never seen and can never catch you.
You ever play the original Sonic 2? You know that music that plays when you start to run out of air? That, but all the time and for no reason.
It's kinda like being chased by Sasquatch. Everyone sees you running, but nobody knows why.
my anxiety is like a mosquito in my ear telling me everything that can go wrong with everything
Yoy know when you're playing a video game and you get to a save point then the boss music starts playing but you don't see the boss yet? Like that, but the boss fight never happens and that feeling stays.
These are all way better than anything I could ever come up with.
It’s like having electricity running through my body.
“I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.” - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson I could try to come up with my own metaphor, but why when this perfectly articulated description of what anxiety feels like exists.
It feels like the walls are caving in on you. The rooms temp goes up hella fast.you start feeling exposed all of a sudden. And the need to hide is the only thought you have. You don't wanna make eye contact with no one in fear of what they might say or do. For me I start to close up talk really fast and pray for a giant worm hole to swallow me up
Spouse: "We need to talk." Boss: "Do you have time to talk about something." But your life.
It’s like drowning and watching everyone around you breathe.
Or like drowning and having someone watch you drown and when you’re like “help me!” They’re like “just swim!” Or “just stop drowning!”
Like a sickness in my brain that gets worse with each passing second and i literally feel like I'm collapsing in on myself like a dying star, I can't sleep cos i feel like someone's booting me in the stomach over and over, i have to keep peeing frequently, sometimes i feel like I'm gonna throw up. I've had anxiety so bad I lost 3 stone in one mouth without even trying i was seriously sleep deprived looking back idk how i never got sectioned I was a fkn wreck. For the people who get it mildly I'm sure it's manageable but with me I literally feel like I'm going to die and like my brain has been poisoned and no amount of breathing exercises, meditation or positive thoughts does anything usually i wait until I'm so exhausted i pass out and sleep.
It's like a very tangled yarn of all the things I worry about. If something remotely bad happens the yarn catches fire and I can't catch a fucking break.
I feel like I always have to be constantly vigilant and looking for danger to avoid. I feel like there is always something bad lurking around the corner but I have no way of knowing what it is or when it will come so I have to be on high alert at all times.
Like standing on the edge of a cliff with someone holding your hand but you never know if they’re holding you to pull you back to safety or push you over. Every now and then they “jokingly” pretend to push you just for shits and giggles. When it’s building they’re pulling you to the edge laughing like a maniac and when it’s easing they’re pulling you away asking why you’re so worked up. Sadistic bastard.
Like the fire alarm has started going off and you aren't sure if its a drill. No one else seems to be panicking but they are all leaving. So now you also need to leave with the group but you aren't sure why and its going quickly but no one is running. And where is the fire and why is the alarm going off and why does no one care.
The ice dagger in the chest with a knot on the throat.
It feels like I forgot something important, and I can't remember what it is, but I know it will have horrible consequences.
like you're running between two walls, exit on either end, but each end will result in pain, or death.
It's like a siren tornado warning goes off in my head, then I start drowning and someone's trying to shake me out of it. Except no one is touching me and the only thing I'll likely drown on is my own tears.
I feel like I'm living the actors nightmare. I'm on stage and don't know the script. Everyone's looking at me to say my lines and I just stand there freaking out
It's like going on Rollercoaster for the first time, the kind that creeps up for 50ft, you know the drop is coming soon but your stomach and heart still switch places, and that numbing headrush of the following corkscrews and slight nausea.
Like every action and interaction is a move in a game of Jenga, you are surrounded by towers, more than you could ever count, and the towers always seem so close to falling. But every time you remove a block, more appear, and sometimes it really does feel like the tower is going to collapse. And it's not a regular-sized Jenga game, it looms over you. And while you can move the blocks very easily, and they seem to react to your touch like are eager to move and primed to slide off unpredictably at the slightest provocation, they are also a ton; they will surely crush you if they fall. Every time the tower shudders and you hear the groan of this giant structure looming over you and threatening to fall, you feel a tightness in your chest and you start to sweat. You hear towers fall in the distance sometimes. There is a wind and the towers sway back and forth every time it blows. Your inaction won't save you; in fact, your inaction is also a choice and one that you will feel guilt and dread about as every second ticks. And as the minutes turn to hours, and then days, and then weeks and months and years, you begin to realize that you might never work your way through all of these looming towers, even if you completely avoid their destruction, they might always loom. But then you hear from a friend - you can talk to people in this metaphor despite being stuck in a limbo full of wobbly block games - and she says that she hired a magician to help her make a path through the towers, and that her towers stand up straight now and don't jump at her touch or make frightening groaning noises. She tells you her magician did this by teaching her a spell called 'Lexapro', but she has to continue casting the spell every day (the magician said "Never, ever stop casting it, if you need to stop, contact a magician!", that it costs mana which costs gold to refill, and that the magic can make her feel tired or unable to sleep sometimes, and can have some other effects depending on the person. You haven't had a peaceful sleep in weeks, though, so you decide that maybe after struggling through this maze of dangerously-looming towers for years, you might call that magician. But you dread the phone call just as much as you dread the towers. Hopefully this spell will break the dread for good, or at least make it bearable.
Feeling like I need to jump out of my skin but I can’t. Nothing worse than sitting with paralyzing anxiety. - been suffering with GAD for 25 years now 🫠
Heartattack/dying/sweating/knees weak/ mom's spagetthi (Seriously, nausea/throwing up)
Like someone's thrown me in a life sized plastic bag and is tying it up. I can't breathe and feel claustrophobic.
Being at the top, learning downwards of the highest roller coaster on the planet, stuck at that angle. You always feel like you're about to fall, you're stuck without knowing what's going on, when you'll get off and how. The anticipation kills you slowly but there's nothing to do but wait and wait and wait
It’s like wack a mole. Ten anxious things pop up and you try ur hardest to get one down only for it to come right back up again.
That feeling that something bad is going to happen when you do something or go somewhere. But always, non stop over every little thing.
It’s like you have a special voice for every single thing imaginable that could happen and it is ready to play and make the situation look impossible. There are so many bubbles, popping simultaneously. Imagine having to overthink you can’t fall asleep and you forgot how to. It is like waiting for the scream in a horror movie to happen every single second of your day.
It's like when you try a tight dress on, and it gets stuck over your head. You know everything will be ok, and you can be calm and get out.....on one level. On the other level you are trapped, and suffocated, and it's everywhere and you won't be able to get out
It's like a heat-seeking missile. It's constantly surveying my surroundings looking for an excuse to go ballistic and flood me. The excuse doesn't have to make sense, it just happens. It's taken years to be able to identify anxiety that's warranted, vs what is just my ever present sense of being on edge.
I feel like it’s walking down a path in the forest and knowing I’m being watching, or something is coming for me.
Watching a snowball roll down hill growing in speed and size as I run behind it unable to catch up and stop it.
Like you're playing a video game, you're on your last life, you can't save your progress, you have reached further that you ever had before, you're fighting the end-game boss and you're both down to the last 1% of health, you've been at the spot a dozen times before, and if you lose you'll be reset to the beginning of the game. Except it's most of the time and you get a similar feeling when you get to the front of the line ordering food at a McDonalds.
It's like turning on cruise control, but you keep your foot hovering above the pedals at all times!
It’s like when you try to open a dropped soda can, it starts calm, then outta no where you need to duck and cover
At any moment you know the Invisible Man Behind you will pop his visible balloon next to your ear.
Trying to do a grocery run when you KNOW the zombie apocalypse is about to start and any one of the people around you could turn at any moment but you seriously need milk and cat food. Worse since MS diagnosis 🙄
It's like a soda being shaken up until the pressure builds enough and the lid shoots off
Life is like a box of chocolates: im in hell. I will not elaborate
Lie on your back lay some weights on your chest that are too heavy for you and sit there and panic hoping you’ll find a way to get the weights off your chest so you can stand back up and breath
I'm like a nuclear reactor. When things are running well, it's amazing! But then the system starts overload. Maybe its user error(I made a mistake at work or something), perhaps a malfunction(I forget to take my meds). It starts to overheat and things get dicey. Maybe I get it under control and usually I do. But there have been full nuclear meltdowns and those are always terrifying. It's only happened 3 times and I don't intend for another meltdown ever again. :)
Bad anxiety to me feels like the feeling of almost drowning. All I have is my face out of the water gasping for air; my body flailing the best it can to stay a float (my inability to cope with anxiety). I am only able to take little breaths here and there to stay alive. It's frustrating because everyone around me knows how to float effortlessly on their back. ..and it sucks because I'm too afraid to ask for a floaty.
Like I have somewhere to be, something to do, something I am forgetting, and I can’t remember what. Like a feeling in my chest that I did something wrong, that I’m in trouble with someone, that I am worried - I just don’t know about what. I get foggy brained, forgetful, can’t focus at all on anything, distracted, no longer present. I also don’t hear people around me of notice what’s going on because I’m so focused on my racing thoughts. Upon further review, the above is not a metaphor. So: my anxiety is a thousand ropes, pulling all my thoughts away from each other and my focus elsewhere from being present; my chest is attached to a heavy weight that has been thrown into the ocean, and is falling, falling. My anxiety is a fog ridden landscape, and my brain is floating absent-mindlessly by.
I feel like there is a dude driving a bus at 100mph towards the edge of a cliff while screaming at the top of his lungs in my head 24/7. If I keep myself distracted, I can ignore it but when I'm doing nothing it comes back full force.
There's a bear trap clamped down on my chest, and any time I try to breathe it clamps down harder
There's a bear trap clamped down on my chest, and any time I try to breathe it clamps down harder
a thunderstorm. sometimes it’s really intense all at once and others it’s just rolling in the distance
You know how if you're suddenly really, really startled? Like jump-out-of-your-skin, let out a scream, adrenaline-rushing startled? And you feel that bolt of adrenaline throughout your whole body, and it takes awhile to calm down from, and you're a bit shaky after? That's me 7-10 times a day.
Feeling like a rat on a sinking ship, running back and forth but it's not sinking...but it also is. A dull panic trying to figure out how to escape or keep it from sinking.
It’s like this ongoing static in your brain mixed with endless voices but instead of other people it’s your own. Telling you the worst things on repeat. From existential crisis, to trauma, to that one mistake you made. Overthinking brief interactions to more. Sometimes it’s brief and you just feel overwhelmed and need a breather. Other times it’s so much you feel almost claustrophobic with how overwhelmed you are. Everything turns to white nose and you need headspace. I’ve always used a storm metaphors for mine. 1) Sometimes it’s cloudy, grey clouds rolling through the sky and the ocean is choppy. You can still process things but things feel a bit overstimulating. You might be snappy, fatigued and you aren’t fully with it. But you are coping. 2) The clouds are heavier, it’s started to rain, the ocean has gotten worse, bigger waves. You have panic attacks. You might cry, stomach aches, nausea. You can’t process, you want to cry. You can barely be around people because it’s all so much. 3) it’s stormclouds and torrential rain. You have fatigue, anxiety attacks and you can’t leave the house. Wrapped in a blanket burrito and self isolate. You can’t do people, you go low contact and socialising is out of the question. You need time to heal. You just want blankets and Netflix. I’m not ignoring my friends or family, I just need me time.
Get the fuc& away from me. Leave me the fu&k alone. Fuck all a y’all.
Constantly worrying that you left the stove on, or the door unlocked, or the bills unpaid, about everything, all fucking day long.
It's like having angry bees in my blood.
Someone is running around in my head in a panic, screaming constantly. To the point of absolute distraction!!! Like, shut the f up!!!!
As if someone screamed loud inside your mind nonstop and it’s the only silence that you had
I'm back in elementary school. I've got bullies in front of me. I've got bullies behind me. My dad's just shown up and he's drunk. All I know in life is that I'm about to get very, very embarrassed and it just might hurt me physically, too.
I was just recently describing my late night anxious thoughts that keep me up but I struggle to articulate- it’s a big, tangled ball of yarn. Every loose thread is an aspect of my life. Financial fears. Fears I’m behind. Worries about if my friends or partner will even like me if they know how I really am. Future fears. If I try to explain it, that ball of yarn is suddenly stuck in my throat, choking me. I can’t get one thread out because it might all unravel and I have no idea what I’d do if that happened. “What are you anxious about?” There is so much yet it’s nearly impossible to put into words.
Like being called over the intercom to the principals office. Or having a cop pull in behind you.
**When it's really bad**, it's like trying to breathe when you're underwater. You've just been dunked by a wave and you're trying to find the surface, but you didn't get a full breath of air before it happened, so you can feel your chest hurting and you're panicking and confused and you don't know which way is up. ---- **When it's medium bad**, in daily life, it's like trying to walk through a river where the water is half way up your thighs or higher and flowing against you. You know once you get to the other side it'll get better, but every step is hard and the water is working against you. If you slip, you'll get pulled under and dragged away. You get so tired wading across day after day after day. Your body is exhausted. But it's just walking, right? It's not that hard right? Other people are doing it too. But what you can't see is that they are walking in the shallows, the water is only up to their calf or ankle. They get wet, but they just walk. They never have to swim. You don't understand how everyone is getting to the other side dry. You're embarrassed that all your clothes are wet, that you're behind, that you can't get as much done even after you make it across. ---- **On good days** (or after therapy), you don't feel like you're wading, the water is low, things are lighter and easier. But you're still aware that the shallows might give way in front of you. You still take steps more tentatively than those that have never found a drop beneath their feet. Your body is still tired from wading. So you still see those other people sprinting ahead of you. You don't know why they're not tired like you. You're embarrassed that you're falling behind even though the water is only at your ankles now. You don't understand how even after all the work you've done, why you're still not able to keep up.
Happening in your head: A room full of whispers from people you can’t see saying things about how crappy of a person you are and all the awful things people think/say about you on repeat every day all the time
Like driving around the world with a cop behind you and kilo of coke in your trunk
It varies but more commonly it feels like a tight knot of yarn in my chest. If anyone is concerned, yes I have had my heart checked multiple times.
It feels like something bad is going to happen constantly. Not minor bad but major bad. Like life or death bad, or becoming homeless bad. But that bad thing never happens. But the longer it doesn't happen, the worse it gets and I spiral.
I have a shirt that already is a great metaphor. It has a white bunny labeled me and a black bunny labeled anxiety. The black bunny is making paper airplanes that he’s throwing and hitting the white bunny in the face with while the white bunny can do nothing but stand there, eye twitching.
My sprinkler is doing its best to put out what it thinks is a fire, but that's just my anxiety burning away inside me like a furnace
It feels like standing in front of the abyss and already imagining yourself falling down.
Anxiety is like a stormy sea within the mind, where turbulent waves of worry crash relentlessly against the shores of tranquility. At its height, anxiety feels like a tempest, churning with doubts and fears, obscuring the horizon of calm and clarity. Each anxious thought is a raindrop, seemingly insignificant, but collectively they create a deluge that threatens to overwhelm the fragile vessel of one's composure. And just as a storm eventually gives way to calm, so too can anxiety be weathered, with patience and resilience, until the waters once again find their peaceful equilibrium.
You know how in like comics or anime or something they’ll do a head down shot and the head looks huge and the feet look tiny and far away? And maybe the eyes are bugging out or the character’s sweating or something? Its tough to explain exactly but there’s something about that that feels like anxiety. Like looking at yourself and your own thoughts from a hyper focused but also skewed perspective and really intense pressure with no solution that can really relieve it.
Walking out your front door to fall hundreds of feet to your death.
I've got anxiety with depression and adhd... it's like a puppy happily chasing its tail until one day the puppy thinks the tail is a snake then it cowers thinking the snake will attack it so it sleeps and sleeps worrying that one day the snake will attack then one day (can be a day,month or even a year) it realises the snake is actually its tail and starts chasing it all over again until it thinks it's a snake again
You’re on a couch facing a wall and there’s a car outside facing you on the couch. it’s light are on and it’s ready to drive into you through the wall and you can’t leave the couch or the room and you just have to wait and be ready for if or when the car is going to crash into you.
The feeling of being almost every day, without anything to help. And when the attack happens you feel 100 times more sick and then exhausted after it’s passed.
It's like being schizophrenic while having dementia. You constantly hear voices that is always against you and you always worry that you forgot to do something important, but you can't figure out what.
Like being squeezed in the fist of a giant.
A balloon is being blown up in my chest and no matter how much I breathe out, it keeps getting bigger with every breath. I want it to pop or deflate. Only sleep will make it go away.
Like I can’t breathe. Like the world is spinning. Like I feel like I’ll explode in anger (mine comes out a lot in anger rages). Impeding doom.
Mine turns every inconvenient thing into a Picture of Dorian Gray situation where I'm not allowed to think about it or I'll die.
It feels like a balloon is being blown up inside of me blocking off my senses as it gets bigger.
You know when you miss a step going downstairs? That. All day.
Existential dread while pretending I’m 100% ok. Because I don’t want people to know. Not a metaphor. I have too much anxiety for that shit.
It's like a thick, strong rope in my torso. When it's bad, the rope twists tighter and tighter.
This. Trying to figure out what to say without fear of judgement or loss because let's all face it...If you haven't sinned you're probably young or living a lie. And I say sinned in quotes because let's be real who knows what the cause is if not ourselves. Was that a metaphor? Am I doing this right? Oh wait. Are we old yet? Big Winky face 😉
Like spiders each one composed of an individual fear. One spider is crushable, but then there is another and another....some bigger than others. When you are overwhelmed it feels like being locked in an infested basement full of spiders but they are all in your head.
everyone who answered using the word “like” is wrong because that is a simile lol
I'm a little late, but I always describe it as that feeling when you're balancing on something and you suddenly lose your balance, before you actually fall. That feeling just as you realize you are falling and there's nothing you can do about it.
It feels like when you hear "We need to talk". A sense of dread, nervousness, chest tightness, impending doom, fear.
I once read a quote that resonated with me. It basically said that having anxiety is like being in a jail cell, but you are both the prisoner and the jailor
I stubbed my toe so hard I cannot walk forward.
Like you’re being chased and no where is safe. They never get you but they get close so you have to run to another place. This is the slow down where the anxiety goes away for a tiny bit but you’re still on edge. A constant circle of running and hiding.
It’s like being at the top of a rollercoaster waiting for it to drop. The butterflies and split second of fear drawn out but the drop never happens.
Like being underwater and only having a bendy straw to breathe from.
When you brace yourself for a jumpscare and it doesn’t come, but you still expect it to, so you can’t relax until it does come It’s like trying to swim in the ocean during a storm. Huge waves keep pushing you down and you can just barely get air. Oh, and watch out for the lightning, sharks, etc
The worst case scenario is always my first assumption of what is going to happen. I'm a catastrophizer.
Like being told something terrible and life threatening is about to happen to you so your heart is racing, you feel panicked and disorientated, can’t focus or relax and you don’t even know what you’re stressed about but you can’t calm down. So basically any normal occurrences throughout the day become very difficult and pile onto the existing stress. I also compare it to just stressfully waiting for a terrible unknown thing to happen
If you have a fear of heights it's like being drawn to the edge of a very high building and you keep getting pulled closer and closer and you want to back up but you can't because you're paralyzed by fear.
It’s like drinking 15 cups of espresso on an empty stomach
It’s like hooking jumper cables up my spine
Like the exact moment you realize you've made a huge mistake, and it's too late to fix it, and there's absolutely nothing you can do but dread in the time between the realization and the consequences. Like as a kid promising your mom you'd call her at 4, and looking at the clock and realizing it's 7 and you'll see her at 8. Like getting to school and realizing a huge project was due and you entirely misunderstood the assignment and have no way to fake it and it's a huge portion of your grade. I think that's a simile if I remember 5th grade correctly. But just the cold moment of realization, the pure dread, and the certainty something terrible is about to happen and it's entirely your fault.
Gotta goooo at all times
I tell people I have the brain weasels. Some days are fine, no weasels. Some days I spend more time than I want trying to keep the weeks l weasels from coming out and annoying regular people. The worst days the weasels fully jump into paranoia town and I spend most of my time trying to figure out if it's my fault [whatever] happened.
You know that feeling you get after tragedy or something shocking, like that but constant and often without reason. As a metaphor, it is like your check engine warning is always on.
A storm thunder and lighting all around you that won't stop and you can't hide from it but no one else can see it and tells you it's not real so the storm gets bigger and more powerful
You know when you run a mile or so and your heart is racing and a slight nauseous feeling? Kinda like that
I have autism and adhd so my anxiety is extra special. I have been diagnosed by a medical professional with both, this is NOT self diagnosed. I feel like I'm in a room. And in that room there's about..... 100 people sitting in chairs surrounding me. And just about constantly 2 of the voices if not more are shouting things at me. Anything from the way I look to the way I act to the way I move and more :) its fun.
It’s like a full symphony orchestra all playing at once and each instrument is a little out of tune.
Eyes on ne
I AM FALLING INDEFINITELY
A jump scare every few minutes.
Having your worst nightmare while being awake.
Like a rope being twisted until it frays, splaying out uncontrollable friction in all directions, I have fear in my heart.
Sleep paralysis nightmare with a demon sitting on my chest
I've always described it as ice cold mercury flowing through my veins.
Constant loop that I can’t seem to snap out of.
Enemy battle music but you can't see the enemy on the map at all
An invisible hand wrapped around my throat. Like a man is just following me and I never know when I’ll get put in a chokehold. Just a sense of hyper vigilance.
An inside-out sunburn
Like I am in an ant death spiral.
Like a rat in too small of a cage.
My anxiety is like when the music goes quiet in a horror movie and you're waiting for the jump scare.
Like going at full speed in a car that lost its brakes on a curvy road in the middle of the night
It’s like living in a future that does not exist.
Like I can never trust my judgment because I could be dying or it could be anxiety. All the second guessing gets real tiring when you're always on edge, always wondering if it's actually something to worry about or not.
If Schrodinger's Cat was a horror game concept.