If you have pneumonia, flu or cancer, it is very easy for people to understand you are sick.
But mental illness is a disease that is harder for people to notice. Although something like anxiety isn’t always visible, it is certainly not uncommon.
Around the world, about 40% of disabilities are due to depression or anxiety, according to the World Health Organization.
Usually, people with anxiety try to hide it and keep it a secret. But when they open up and tell someone, they become one of the most important people in the world to them.
For Nikki Pennington, her mother was ‘this person’.
Nikki’s heartbreaking story is something we think everyone should take a moment and read. It is touching and we hope you’ll read it till the end.
Nikki wrote on Facebook:
“Anxiety has been a part of my life since I can remember myself. It has been there so long I can’t remember my life without it.
If you have anxiety then you know you have that one person. This one person who knows how to help you relax in the middle of an anxiety attack.
This one person for me is my mother. She knew exactly what to say, how to say, and exactly at what moment to say it to bring me back to reality. Her words and comfort were always stronger than my anxiety. I always assumed she would always be there to help me, but that all changed.
It was a few weeks after my husband and I got married and my anxiety went into action again, I said, ‘I have to call my mom’.
He paused and said, ‘How about you talk to me instead? Just try me and see if I can help.’
So that’s what I did, I gave him a chance to help calm my anxiety and it was like I was talking to my mother, it was like I was talking to ‘this person’ of mine..”
“The conversations with my mother when my anxiety was at its full intensity began at decrease more and more. She never asked why, never asked about it once.
This is because mothers like mine are few, and there are not many like them.
The day my mother passed away I called my husband. I said, ‘This person of mine is gone. The person who knew me and loved me with all my shortcomings. Man, the only one who could soothe all my fears, is no more around.’
So he started telling me a story about my mother. A story I did not know about before because she did not want me to know.
On our wedding day, my mom gave my husband a note. A note that was only for both of them. A note that said ‘How to become Nikki’s person'”..
“It was a step-by-step guide on what she would say and do for me when my anxiety would take over me.
Step 1: Just listen
Step 2: Listen a little more
Step 3: Do not try to solve the problem
Step 4: Tell her you understand
Step 5: Keep listening until she has solved everything herself. She will solve it in the end, she always succeeds
She does not know yet, but she solved everything by herself all this time.
My mother gave up being that person, not because she didn’t want to continue, but because she wanted my husband to know what it would be like when she would no longer be here.”
“She gave up being my person to make sure I would always have such a person no matter what.
Well, mother, you will always and forever be my person.”
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