Anxiety, as with other mental illnesses, is not something that is always obvious.

I didn’t even realize I had anxiety until after I was no longer a considerably anxious person.

In my childhood, my mom always told others that I was shy. As I grew up, I continued to believe that this was the case. I even thought I was probably more introverted than a normal person because of how nervous I got around big groups. Even the times I would shake I didn’t suspect it was anxiety. I thought my nerves were higher because I was in a stressful situation but I never questioned it further.

The literal definition of anxiety is “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.” However, the anxiety I am referring to is the psychiatric disorder which is defined as “a nervous disorder characterized by a state of excessive uneasiness and apprehension, typically with compulsive behavior or panic attacks.”

There are different versions and scales of anxiety. The diagnosis is also known to bleed into other disorders such as phobias. To my knowledge, my anxiety never caused any attack for me. However, it did influence my education. I was never officially diagnosed, but comparing it to how I am now–I had the minor symptoms. Standing in front of a crowd whether or not I was familiar with them was nerve-wrecking. So presentations, answering questions, or any kind of speech that the class could hear made me shaky and anxious. It also made it difficult to approach teachers and students with problems, and working in groups was never that easy. Being put on the spot was almost always the worst.

A lot of people, mostly adults in my experience, like to play it off as a kid/student being shy, but for a big surmount of people it’s a serious problem and can affect their mentality for the better or worse. I hope that this may help people keep in mind of others’ possible mental situations. Although it may not be obvious, people always have more going on than they might appear.