This is going to sound really weird but I'm going to put it out there. For the longest time I had extreme anxiety but didn't know it. I think I was over a year into therapy when I finally realized that "anxiety" was "that running away feeling" which is just bizarre.💙

But if you've never been taught what anxiety is or what feeling anxious is or anxiousness feels like then how are you supposed to know? I didn't know that the label anxiety went with that running away feeling until eventually I put two and two together.💙

And now whenever I feel like running away from something, whenever I feel avoidant, whenever my brain says, "hey let's go and make a cup of tea instead of doing this thing that we should be doing", I recognize that that "running away feeling" means I'm actually 💙 about something.

So I just thought I'd throw that out there. I hope it's helpful for someone who might be struggling to recognize that they have anxiety because often anxiety and depression are co-occurrent. In fact it's very common for them to come together.💙

I thought I had depression. I didn't think I had anxiety but that's before I realized that "that running away feeling" was actually anxiety.💙