Baring my soul.

As a blogger, I've seen a pattern among us all. You may agree, you may not. It seems that there are a lot of us who have experienced, whether it be something we suffer with or we've seen people suffer with, some kind of anxiety/depression.
It's a heavy subject, as you'll all agree, but I've seen many bloggers band together in this "taboo" talk and give the reassurance that's required. I think a lot of us found it easier to come out into the light due to the honesty of Zoella - who has openly discussed her anxiety in Blogs and Vlogs.
I, for one, gave out a sigh of relief when I read experiences that I could relate to when it came to anxiety. I never thought I was alone in how I felt, but it sometimes felt that way. When I tried to describe just how it felt, a lot of people told me to "just be happy" or "try and let it pass". It isn't their fault that they gave this advice - it isn't an easy thing to understand. People, for example, can't understand that at 3 in the morning, I will lay in bed and wonder about the day before or past mistakes I've made.
"Can't you just go back to sleep?"
If only it was that easy. If it was, I'd be a much happier person. Now, I'm not saying I'm down all the time. I can fight my way through a day when I need to, and I find distractions help me a lot, and I have a good support system in place. I'm very lucky, that way. You'll rarely see me unhappy. Why bring someone down? It's just sometimes, on nights like tonight, I need someone to put my brain into perspective and realise that there is a bigger picture.
Maybe that's why we blog. We are, in some way, looking for some comfort or acceptance from someone we don't know to let us smile. The only problem is, we open ourselves up for scrutiny as well, very real harshness. I'm just lucky that I haven't come across that yet.

I'm writing this because the past few days have been particular anxious ones for me. Just this morning, at around 5am, I woke up in a cold sweat that left me frozen with fear. I didn't know where I was, what day it was or what was happening. I didn't even understand who the person next to me was. And this is what happens when I'm anxious and have nothing to attach it to. My body knows something is wrong, but can't tag it to something that happened, so I freak out. To put it lightly.
I'm lucky enough that if I ramble to my other half about these episodes, or about the little things that play on my mind, he puts it in a perspective for me that makes me laugh at myself. He will ask me why I think that, to explain why I felt that was a reason to be anxious, to play out the worst and best case scenario. It makes me feel better. My heart aches at the thought of people who don't have someone to rationalise their midnight fears.
I felt like I needed to write this down so maybe, like other bloggers have done for me, someone could read this and understand that they aren't on their own. And in the middle of the night, when all seems desperate and lost, there is someone who understands. Maybe knowing that you're not the only one will be your rationalisation when you need it.