I suffer from anxiety. I never knew this until I became aware of what mental health was through my job. And even people who are close to me do not believe anxiety to be a mental illness. Frankly, it is because they do not understand what effects it has on the body.

I was in pain, I had diarrhoea, I couldn’t sleep, I’d shake, I’d be irritable when normally I was fine. I had low resilience and tolerance and onsets of depression because little aches and pains that came with the job would become just another thing to worry about, and anxiety makes little things into big problems. A tiny ache became crippling.

I know so many people with anxiety problems, but they do not know/or refuse to believe it is anxiety. Instead, they insist it’s worse. They often believe vital organs are failing, they are in tremendous amounts of pain, have fainting spells and panic attacks and when a doctor gives them the all clear, they refuse to believe it. And they consider all these symptoms to be too great for something as trivial as ‘anxiety’.

We’re better at accepting mental health now-a-days, but it’s in no way good enough yet. Too many people shy away from medicines and treatments because they do not consider mental health a physical illness that needs physical treatment.

But as a sufferer myself I can put my hand on my heart and say with all seriousness, there is no greater strength than the power of the human mind, and the moment the human mind strays or breaks even in the slightest, then you’ll come to know more stress and ailments than any physical condition could ever inflict.