DO YOU EVER FEEL ANXIOUS? WELL, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

We are reflecting on The Hard Task of Growing Up in our English lessons in this final year. We have worked on poems, novels, articles, clips from movies, songs and videos so far. We also listened to an interview with global star Shawn Mendes and  to one of his songs, In My Blood. Both in the song and in the interview Shawn Mendes refers to his issue with anxiety and gives his own personal vision on the matter. We were asked by our teacher to write about our own struggle with anxiety. Here's what  some of us had to say. 

Karina

Anxiety is a combination of emotions which include fear, worry and most of the time it's due to nothing. You can feel anxious or nervous before a test, before a job interview or when you fight with someone really close to you, but the hardest moments are when you feel anxious because you don't think you're good enough.

There are moments in life when it seems you don't fit anywhere, it's like you feel good for nothing, you don't feel worthy enough. In those moments you are really down and sometimes it's really hard to calm down,  because you think you are useless.

It happens for many reasons, even a simple word or a gesture can shut you down. Many times, when you feel like this, you don't want anybody beside you to see your true feelings but that's not a solution.

When you feel anxious for any reason you should talk to someone who can help you calm  down. It's worse when you keep it all inside and don't tell anything to anyone. You should open up and show your feelings and fragilities to someone who really cares.

Everybody feels bad sometimes and we all need someone to help us in those hard moments but to do that we have to open up and show our true feelings.  

Francesco

In my life anxiety is a key word. I don’t think it is a negative thing because, as Shawn Mendes says, “pressure creates diamonds”. So, yes, in my life I’m very often anxious, especially before tests, football matches or flute performances.

I realize I’m nervous when my heart starts pounding, my hands start sweating and my head starts hurting. To calm down and relax I usually take a long breath and I think of beautiful things happened to me recently.

In my opinion anxiety, if intended in a practical way, is a useful “tool” in order to better understand and estimate conditions and situations. It makes you more focused, and success, I think, comes also from being good at focusing.

Alex T. 

I’m anxious or nervous before an important test, an important football match or when I have to make something that it is important to me. Anxiety can be also positive. For example, I’m anxious before a trip or a special event.

The symptoms of my anxiety are preoccupation, insecurity, agitation and stress and to calm them down I try to think of other things.

For me a person always tries to show himself strong, but we are humans and so we have emotions and sometimes we can’t control them.