I was driving in my car this morning on my way to work, and a conversation my mother and I had the previous day was floating through my mind. We were speaking about others with anxiety and their battles when my mother said, “but your anxiety is different, you could see through to reality.” That is huge reason why my anxiety is so bad, I get anxious about things—but I can see through my own mental bullshit into the fact that I am being irrational- which then in turns causes me to get more anxious because why can’t I just react normally?

Long tangent short, this conversation brought into my mind the great what if of life I am writing about today “what if I’m just not made to follow the rules?”

I do believe, and have always believed, that rules were meant to be broken. If you know me personally you know that I mostly live according to my own rules, and if you don’t know me well you could ask literally anybody I’ve ever associated with and they would agree with that statement. The thing is that rule breakers in our society are generally punished for their supposed wrong doings. Now, this is quite discouraging to a personality founded on rebellion.

Despite this fact of life there is another, rather more hopeful, fact of life. Those who break the rules within our society also tend to reach new heights that mankind didn’t even know existed. Now, I do quite hope, that my rule breaking and line crossing leads to the latter. The difference between punishment and reward is the tact with which you dare to challenge society’s desired behaviors.

I like to think that I have, at least, some tact when I go about making my own rules and living life. However, I know sometimes that is not the case. But, I think the thing is, that maybe forging your own path isn’t always about having tact. Creating your own rules, abiding no one else’s way of life, these things don’t always require tact. I have about zero strategy when it comes to making my own rules about my anxiety, because the part of me making them is a part of me I have yet to completely understand.

And that’s ok.

I’m working on understanding that part of me, and the rules it likes to create. With each day I understand that part of me even more, and each day I’m able to continue on my unique journey with this illness. Because that’s the thing about anxiety, there are no universal set of rules for how it will behave. Looking at each person’s illness that way only prevents us from understand the disease and helping those who suffer from it. Sure, there are general examples of things that are widespread among those who suffer from anxiety, but there are no rules to anxiety.

Everyone who suffers has different battles, worries, triggers, and coping mechanisms. Each person has a unique set of rules to learn about themselves and their anxiety. And I think once we, as a society, understand that we can begin to help those who suffer from anxiety. We can begin to help those who suffer from any mental illness—because they all create their own rules.