To the general public I mean, and most friends and family members. People seem to think anxiety is a mood, like crabby or sad or chipper or silly.

They seem to think that anxiety is being hyper about a date or nervous about a test.

They seem to think that one could "just not worry about it". What is "it"? As if anxiety were focused on some little problem that, once solved, POOF! the anxiety disappears.

I probably thought that once. Until I first started having panic attacks, and a random EKG to make sure it was "just" anxiety.

No, I don't much talk about it, because people don't really want to know that anxiety is there on some level all the time, like a clinging mass of seaweed that sometimes gives me a break and only strangles loosely.

I don't talk about it because some people (not all) think that taking "a pill" for anxiety is a weakness...once again, one should simply not get worked up, not fret, not think about those things. Have more faith. Get a hobby. Cheer up.

If they only knew. But I don't talk about it, except here where it's safe.