You may look calm, but deep down you are not.
Anxiety is like a monster growing up inside of you. You can feel it, but you are trying not to let it get out. You cannot stop it, so you are trying your very best to look ok.
You sometimes have to leave social settings abruptly.
People tend to take this the wrong way. When a person has high functioning anxiety, they may be forced to suddenly leave a social setting, and seek solitude, even if they seemed comfortable a minute before.
You have tiny habits that are impossible to break.
Anxiety assumes bodily expressions. People that live with it tend to try to shake it off by small habits that are impossible to stop: biting nails, playing with your hair compulsively, shaking your legs.
You are a perfectionist and you don’t accept praise.
With everything you do, you try to be perfect. You strive for perfection, and subsequently, you are never happy with what you achieve. In addition to that, you never accept the praise of others, who believe in your work.
You strive to make people happy.
You are the life of the party, the joker of the group. The good kid for the parents, the amazing young talent for the employer. You do everything in your power to make everyone happy and proud of you, yet you reach the point of always believing that you are not good enough, after all.
You always have to stay busy.
Your mind works so fast and so intense that it drives you crazy. So, all you can do to avoid being trapped in it is to stay busy, occupied, active, and not have enough time to think.
But you always find time to think…
