Marian Keyes Quotes

Even at age 10, I already knew that I was different from most people. My anxiety disorder was still years from being diagnosed, but it affected me quite deeply. I was too afraid to speak out in class, too nervous to make real friends.

I have had issues with depression all my life, and it's probably true to say there was a tendency towards it even when I was very young, during my schooldays. There was often - and this is quite common with comics - a sense of not feeling as if I belonged anywhere.

I had massive anxiety as a child. I was in therapy. From 8 to 10, I was borderline agora-phobic. I could not leave my mom's side. I don't really have panic attacks anymore, but I had really bad anxiety.

I thought I wasn't attractive or talented anymore. I cried easily and was depressed and removed. I became emotionally insecure about what the second half of my life would bring. I was angry, scared, frightened and lonely.

For a while I couldn't leave the house by myself. Even if I was just grocery shopping alone, I'd get self-conscious.

I'm not one of those guys that has a great worldview. I kind of deal with terror and fear and isolation and abandonment.

I've been living with anxiety much, much, much longer than I've been with living with alcoholism, that's for sure. I already knew from the sheer numbers and all the data that I'm not alone. I mean, the biggest mistake I did was spending most of my life thinking I was the only person who felt this way.

There was about two years where I was more or less agoraphobic and didn't deal with anybody, didn't talk to anybody, didn't have any friends at all.

So I just sat in bed for six months - I literally didn't leave the house - and it was the first time that I'd actually experienced being depressed. I'd be sad on and off but I'd never experienced actual depression. Like, crying for no reason. It was really horrible.

I was miserable at uni. There were months at a time when I wouldn't leave the house unless it was to buy food. I lost a lot of friendships. I later lost jobs because of my mental health.

I kept a lid on my feelings at school but, when I was 18, dropped out of everything and couldn't even be bothered to get out of bed.

It's sad, actually, because my anxiety keeps me from enjoying things as much as I should at this age.

I've had days when I go in my bedroom for 24 hours at a time. I call them my Cilla Black days, and they're literally black days. It's like the old Boomtown Rats song 'I Don't Like Mondays.' You just want to shut the whole day down.

I was not a silly kid or outgoing. In fact, I suffered from quite a bit of anxiety. I used to have panic attacks when I was a teenager, really incapacitating moments, because I had some phobias.

Once a week, I like to slip into a deep existential depression where I lose all my sense of oneness and self-worth.

I had no friends. I worried a lot.

I'd just like to be able to walk outside as everyone does and enjoy time with my friends, not feel bad for not wanting to take a picture.

I don't watch the news because I wouldn't leave the house. I would not leave the house.

From 1994 to 1997, I did nothing. I slept and slept and slept. If I was awake, I had to deal with things, I had to do things. In order to avoid that, I would just stay in bed.

If I feel anxious every time someone is staring at me, well, I can't control what they stare at, but my reaction is, I'm just not going to go outside the house. I'm going to stay in and chill. And when I do go out, I understand what comes along with that.

I used to like going out so much, and now I can't get myself to leave home.

I know just how isolating it can feel to experience severe anxiety.

I went from being very popular and the head of the clique in the sixth grade to having, like, kid depression in the seventh grade. Not leaving the house. Not looking people in the eye... My body made me feel bad at everything.

At this very moment, I don't feel I will be able to handle what's coming.

Some days, 24 hours is too much to stay put in, so I take the day hour by hour, moment by moment. I break the task, the challenge, the fear into small, bite-size pieces. I can handle a piece of fear, depression, anger, pain, sadness, loneliness, illness. I actually put my hands up to my face, one next to each eye, like blinders on a horse.