Anxiety. Something that can creep up on you at the weirdest of times and completely bring your life to a halt.
It can make you question everything about yourself, make you feel incredibly awkward and drag you down into a confused mess.
Most people would be surprised how many people suffer anxiety or not even recognise that they themselves are experiencing anxiety or depression.
Sometimes anxiety and depression - even in someone you are close to - can be waved off and them just seeming as though they are being 'rude', 'snobby' or 'uptight'...
What you probably aren't aware of - and is a lot of the time so well hidden - is the intense feelings of insecurity, the fear of everything going wrong and the times of pure panic when thoughts become so overwhelming.
Awareness is so important, even if you aren't experiencing these things personally. The need to acknowledge and keep having conversations about these kind of issues in our lives is more important than ever.
We need to try to be open to sharing our experiences and feelings with the people in our lives and encourage - rather than shame or have stigma around - mental health issues.
Even when it comes to our children - rather than hiding all of our stresses and feelings, we can teach our children that these things are nothing to be ashamed of and encourage them to be open with these kinds of situations and feelings.
We can help to teach them to acknowledge, communicate and seek help for issues beyond their control.
It's setting our selves, our kids and next generation up to be more aware and better equiped
to effectively cope with real life issues.