So I deal with a handful of mental disorders: adhd, social anxiety, and depression. Recently, I read an argument somewhere that compared anxiety with a physical disability. To paraphrase, it essentially asked: How come we don't expect people in wheelchairs to get up and walk yet we expect people with social anxiety to speak in public?

To me, the comparison makes a lot of sense. For one, anxiety is permanent in the same way some physical disabilities are. The best we can do is learn to manage it and try to limit it's impediment on our daily life, much in the same way as suffers of a physical disability. And two, anxiety does have physical consequences. It can place stress on your body. While exposure therapy can be helpful, being in a situation that is too overwhelming, I believe, can cause more harm than good.

And yet, because our struggles are mental and not physical (except the consequences of stress), we are mostly overlooked and expected to function the same as everyone else. In college, I'm still expected to give speeches in front of a class, I will still be expected to go to interviews to get a job, and I will still have to give presentations in front of coworkers. I am forced to face all these things that trigger my anxiety, and yet still, no one has asked a person in a wheelchair to walk.

So I'm curious what your thoughts on this are. Should society be more mindful of and lenient with anxiety, or is the responsibility on us to find a way to "get over it"?