It's so fucking infuriating how anxiety is viewed as some lesser, even illegitimate form of mental health disability.
Just because you have experienced butterflies before public speaking or an interview and have ~gotten over it~ does not mean you now have even an inkling of what living with a severe panic disorder is like.
That shit is not the same as having such a severe neurological reaction to stress that your nervous system is convinced you're dying and is so overwhelmed by stimuli that it is patently unable to process anything outside of all-consuming, irrational panic.
And even when people are capable of conceptualizing that someone may have panic attacks and are sympathetic to that... it's like that's as far as they're willing to take it.
Anything short of a panic attack is suddenly something that can be ~overcome~ or ~powered through~ just like "everyone else".
Ironically, if you view severe anxiety rationally... is it not obvious that if someone is capable of experiencing the same level of a panic over getting a shot that you would experience when being held at gunpoint that... that level of hyperactivity might extend to literally every other aspect of their life?
Many cases of severe anxiety are a function of a defective parasympathetic nervous system. People with severe anxiety are as neurologically incapable of calming down as someone who suffers from seizures (the medications for the conditions literally overlap!!).
Medication, therapy, and coping mechanisms work as well as they do for any other health condition.
If I have to hear "get over it" or "just calm down" or any other idiotic platitude one more time I'm actually going to commit homicide.


















