According to Elements of Behavioral Health, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States. Affecting over 40 million Americans, anxiety has taken a toll on roughly a fifth of the nation’s population.
As one who falls in that unfortunate 20 percent, I couldn’t be more familiar with its power to eat away at you from the inside out. Often the act of breathing stresses me out, and thus everything else does exponentially.
But for the 80 percent who don’t know the crippling feeling associated with this invisible disease, it can be a difficult concept to grasp.
From the outside looking in, it’s easy to question, “What is your problem? Why are you freaking out all the time? Why can’t you just be HAPPY?”
Or my favorite…
Haven’t you heard the verse “Be anxious for nothing”?
**Insert HARD eye roll here**
Is that Truth? Of course. But is there often a chemical component of anxiety that contemplating on a Bible verse won’t fix? Absolutely.
As a defense mechanism, the only words we can offer most of the time are “I’m sorry.” Apologizing for who we are becomes all too natural when we simply can’t find the words or don’t have the energy to explain ourselves.
But for No Filter Mum and mental health campaigner, Jessica, she’s decided that enough is ENOUGH.
“We need to stop apologizing on behalf of anxiety,” she charges in a recent viral Facebook post—and her bold words of encouragement are now fueling other anxiety sufferers to do the same:
“We need to stop apologizing on behalf of anxiety.