Have you ever experienced the situation where you suddenly break down from within, but not sure why? Have you ever suddenly felt that your life will end in a fraction of seconds and feel completely helpless? Have you ever faced a situation where your heart is racing and aching with pain from within, but you step out of home with a smile on your face? Have you ever felt like crying out loud with no reason or explanation given to anyone around for it?

Not sure if any of you who are reading this has ever experienced it in your lives. But trust me, this is not something out from a story or a bit in a movie. It is a real episode of a person battling through a silent struggle in their life called Anxiety. Anxiety is that feeling when you are not necessarily sad but just feel really empty and void from inside. It’s a kind of feeling like you’ve lost something but having no clue when or where you last had it. The next immediate question you might get in your mind is why? What is the reason for this feeling or pain? I am still searching for it and not sure if anyone going through this might be able to answer this to the point. Again, as I always quote in my blog that whatever I pen down here are the real experiences I have come across in my life or purely my perceptional thoughts on the same. After years of living with the battle with my inner self, finally I feel like sharing the story of my silent struggle with the world.

Even at an early age, I can still recall feeling empty and shaken many a times with no strong reason for being so. As a child then, I didn’t have the vocabulary to express my feelings to anyone as nothing made any sense to me at that point of time. As I grew into an adult, the chest-crushing feelings of anxiety and the dark cloud of depression followed me through my life. Again, these were always left unspoken as I could never get a clarity on these emotions and never did I had any strong reason to justify my emotions. Still, I did try to share my feelings and emotions to few people around me thinking they would understand my situation and help me get a clarity or a solution for it. But, nothing was of any use as I could never justify my own emotions appropriately and could never succeed in making anyone understand what I had felt inside. Every time I tried sharing with someone next to me, I failed and ended up making a fool of myself in front of the world. It was never that I was short of anything in life. I always felt that I had a much better life than many of them around the world and was sufficient to live my life happily. Of course, few things in and around my life did not had a great positive impact but I always managed to get adjusted towards all that was coming my way, irrespective of what I wanted in my life. Afterall, like most of the middle-class girls, even I was tuned to the fact that life is all about adjustments and compromises. Maybe I never got an opportunity to pursue what I actually wanted to do for the unsaid reasons which hold the societal beliefs strongly. But, I always made the best out of my life in all ways, irrespective of all the odds and struggles I had been through in my life.  

That time, I was not matured enough to understand the actual cause behind these emotions nor did I know what it was actually called. Now, after so many years of living through these battles, I started knowing a bit about these, which take over our mind and body and make us helpless at a particular moment with no cautions given to us at any point of time. It is said that every emotion has a story to tell and I always have been loaded with too many emotions and yes, there were many stories within me that were always left untold. Major part of the childhood and adult phases have been part of these silent struggles and battles, which now, I can quote as Anxiety or panic attacks but then I never had any clue about them and never felt important to share them with anyone specifically. Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time, without knowing the actual cause or reason for it. There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds. The feeling of you having so many mixed feelings and emotions which are making you sad and worried but you cannot explain it to anyone due to the fear that no one will actually understand it and will not believe that it would make any sense at all. There have been many years in my life where I have been through this phase and had been the worst days of life battling through it all by myself. Back then, I did not have the awareness of these things and never understood the fact that it is sometimes ok to be not fine and go through these emotions. As the years passed I continued to fight these battles silently and try all the possible alternatives to divert my mind and get it back on the normal track.

As I speak today, at 43 years of age, I understand the importance of talking openly about these challenges and emotions without hesitating as now I understand that it is common to go through these situations. It has been so many years that I had been living with this anxiety, but even today nothing much has changed as still when I go through the panic attacks and can neither figure out the reason behind it nor can I share it with anyone because the moment I tell people about what I feel, the very first question they shoot at me is WHY? WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? WHAT IS THAT WHICH IS BOTHERING YOU? and the list of questions never end. I wish I had the answers for all these questions, I myself would have figured out the solution as well. Most of the time, people around you won’t understand your journey, your struggles or your situation. Though I manage to handle myself during such situations, sometimes I feel it’s high time to come out of that box, scream and tell the world that I am not fine, though I manage to get up every morning, take care of my duties and responsibilities, go to work, put a smile on my face and keep going through the day. Anxiety does not always look like being sad, crying, lying on bed not feeling like coming out, not going out or anything as such. I can fake a smile on my face while I get up every day, take care of my daily chores, step out for work, talk to people, laugh and pretend to be absolutely normal but that does not fade away the fact that I am not fine from within. While my whole day goes in the flow smoothly, night is the time for all these silent struggles and battles with my inner self. Living with anxiety is like being followed by an unknown voice. It knows all your insecurities and uses them against you. It gets to the point when it’s the loudest voice in the room and it’s the one only you can hear. In the middle of the dark night, I wake up to the most horrifying experience of someone talking loudly, not able to breathe, that worst feeling of heaviness in my chest and wanting to cry my heart out and wanting someone to be with me asking nothing but just holding me tight and comforting me that everything will be fine.  I wish this was possible for real in life but unfortunately, we cannot have people around us all the time who understand all this without we explaining them about anything. But the bitter fact of life which I have always experienced and understood is that people will only be there for you when it is convenient to them and not when you actually need someone. And yes, everyone has their own set of priorities in life and I don’t put anyone at fault for not being available for me, which is definitely not fair, right? But does the need to have a companion with us at that point of time so important? I cannot generalize this answer but as per my experience, having someone who knows and understands to comfort my chaotic mind and the racing heart just makes it easy for me to overcome those few horrifying minutes of panic. But on the other hand, I know it is not possible all the time and hence I have started learning to deal with this all by myself. It is not easy to accept the fact that I am alone standing in the midst of this chaos and will have to fight the battle alone but when it is the only option I have, I will have to do it irrespective of anything else.

All the battles, cries, pain still does not make much sense to many of them as they can never understand what I am going through. I still come across people around me in my life who don’t give any importance to all this and in turn, make fun of me. But, there is nothing to fake and I wouldn’t gain anything by doing all this. I have tuned my mind in a way that every night, I go through this phase of horrifying battles and I get up next day morning faking a smile to cover all the inner scars of the night. The world has the ability to only focus on the outer part of me, thinking I am happy and everything is perfect in my life. A very few of them would actually be able to look deep beyond the outer grid of the fake covering I do to cover all the pain that exist within. But the fact remains that even these people who say we understand also do not actually understand and they keep asking me the reason for all this. Again, I wish I could know the reason and the solution for this but am myself clueless coz there is no specific reason for all this. In all these years, I might have tried my best ways to overcome this, tried seeking help from the therapists and also consulted a Psychologist but everything had only a temporary solution for me. For few days, I would be fine and again back to the same zone feeling confused and helpless. Now, it has become like a routine for me but the weird thing is even after being in this situation for so long and experiencing these multiple times in life, I still cannot manage to neither get use to it nor overcome it. 

I still could neither get the cause for this anxiety nor could I overcome it yet and still has the same repeated cycle even today. In the stillness of the night, where the world seems asleep, I suddenly wake up out of nowhere with a blank mind wondering what should I do? I would just lie awake for hours before drifting off, only to be jolted from sleep by the overwhelming sensation of panic. It is as though my mind and body has made an unspoken agreement to betray me in the quiet hours of every night. Recently, the days have been stressful enough, but the nights have been becoming unbearable. I started to fear the very act of falling asleep and every night as it happens, it leaves me weaker, emotionally drained, exhausted and dreading the night that lay ahead. After many such horrifying nights, I realize it is not just the panic attack that is weakening me but the hopelessness that followed, the fear of another sleepless night, the inability to break free from this cycle. Each night feels like an endless fall, with no ground to hit and no way to pull myself out. Every night when the clock ticks 1 or 1:30 AM, it marks another wave crashing against my fragile peace, leaving me adrift in the storm, searching for the shore. In today’s fast-paced world, seeking professional help for mental well-being is no longer a taboo—it’s a necessity. Recently, I decided to take that step and consulted professionals to guide me through my emotional journey, but due to the very high charges, I am now caught in a dilemma about whether to continue or not.

Tonight, as I pen down my thoughts and reflect on this unrelenting cycle of fear, I find myself choosing a different path—not to resist, but to accept. I am allowing myself to stop fighting against the odds, hoping that this acceptance might bring a glimmer of relief. The panic may not vanish completely, and the nights might still feel daunting, but by embracing what is happening instead of resisting, I hope to uncover a sense of peace. Slowly, I’m letting go of the expectation for things to magically improve and instead allowing myself to simply exist with whatever comes my way. I want to retrain my mind and body to stop seeing the night as a battle to survive but as a reality to embrace. In this shift, I hope to discover a new kind of strength—not by defeating the fear, but by learning to coexist with it. Perhaps, in this acceptance, I will find the patience to let things ease over time, knowing that even the darkest nights can eventually lead to brighter mornings. It’s high time I confront and accept a profound truth about life: no one can be with us all the time, no matter how much they care. People have their own lives, priorities, and limitations, and their availability will always be shaped by those factors. This doesn’t mean they don’t value or love us; it simply means that their presence cannot always align with our needs. For someone grappling with emotional insecurity, this realization is unsettling but necessary. I’ve come to understand that leaning entirely on others for comfort or reassurance isn’t the answer. Their support, though heartfelt, might not always be enough to help me navigate the depths of my struggles. True healing and security must come from within.