Welcome back to anxiety Slayer. I'm Shan Vanderbilt here with my sweet friend and

co-host and Angasivere. Following in from last week's episode where we talked

about being newly diagnosed with anxiety.

Today we're talking about what our listeners wish people understood about living with anxiety.

We loved having input from the members of our private Facebook group

who kindly shared what they wish was more understood. Hello Ananga.

Hi Shan.

Thanks so much for reaching out to the members in our private Facebook group to get some more input on this.

I know we've talked about how to help our friends and loved ones who suffer

with anxiety, but I love this take on what I wish people understood about my anxiety. It's a different story isn't it?

I think it's really important and there are so many areas in our life where we wish we were better understood anxiety, depression, chronic illness, grief.

There's so so many areas where we need more understanding and anxiety is one of those and such a difficult

thing to live with and such an isolating thing to live with already and I think one of

our key concerns is that when we don't feel understood we feel more isolated

with a condition that can already make us feel quite hard on ourselves at times and it just exacerbates that.

So I'm really grateful to the members of our Facebook group who spoke up and

shared their thoughts and experiences and looking forward to sharing what they have to say, so I hope it will be helpful.

And the first bit of feedback that we got I thought was so powerful and that is that anxiety is not something I'm doing to myself.

And the actual quote itself was I wish people understood that I wasn't doing anxiety, that I wasn't doing it to myself.

I frequently received the comment that I am creating my own problems

and have been made to feel like my anxiety is my fault.

It would help to hear that I'm understood

...