Have you ever had to say "No, I can't make it" on more than one occasion because you literally can't bring yourself to go anywhere because your anxiety is making you miserable? Have you had someone get mad at you, and make comments about how you keep to yourself, always cancel, or you "just aren't friendly anymore"?
Anxiety can make you feel like a social outcast. Anxiety can turn the most social individual into a loner. Anxiety is displacing.
I have had many times where I cancelled at the last minute because no matter how much I geared myself up for it, I just couldn't do it. Through tears I have made the texts trying my best to explain why I wouldn't be there. Sometimes spending more than 20 minutes on one text as I try to make it as non-offensive as I could. Or there are those moments when you actually make it to where you are going, only to dart out of there at the speed of light shortly after getting there with no explanation.
Its hard to explain to someone that has never been there, or has never seen someone suffer with anxiety why it happens. Why we can't just walk out the door and be okay. Why we miss church so much. Why we can't sing in the choir that day. Why we can't have a decent conversation at times because our brain is in such an intense fog that we are having a hard time putting a sentence together. Why we can't make eye contact because if we do we will burst into uncontrollable sobbing. Why even the simplest tasks can be totally and completely draining to the point that it puts us in the bed leaving our bodies feeling as though we have been hit by a semi truck.
When we get statements like "Just do it anyway", and "You let it get in the way too much" it can leave us feeling completely disregarded. As though we are making it all up. Its not as though we aren't trying to live life...to still be us. We want nothing more than for us to be who we "used to be".
If you could ask anyone who suffers from anxiety on an everyday basis what they want (besides no anxiety), almost all of them would say "Understanding", "Compassion for what we go through". We just want you to acknowledge that what we go through is very real, that we are doing our very best to go about daily life despite it all.
"Be kind, you never know someones struggles"