What is angústia?
When Freud help Mi redefine ‘New Year, New Me’
Just the other night, I was lying in bed, ready to crash after an exhausting day. My body felt heavy, my eyes stung with sleep, and I thought, ‘Finally.’ But the moment my head hit the pillow? My brain decided it was party time. Random scenarios, tiny regrets, big questions and I felt this… pressure, this weird sadness. Not enough to call it anxiety, because my heart wasn’t racing, but definitely enough to keep me awake.
The next day, I woke up, took some time to reflect, but I still couldn’t piece it together. My life is good lately. I’ve been achieving my goals, and there’s really nothing wrong, at least nothing I can see… So, in psychotherapy session, I told Darci, ‘I don’t get it. Why am I feeling this way? Why can’t I sleep at night?’
He listened quietly, then said, ‘Have you considered it might be angústia?’
The moment he said it, something clicked. I thought, ‘Oh my God. Of course!’
In English, for example, angst tends to focus on existential dread or emotional turmoil, often intellectualized and linked to modern life’s uncertainties. Angústia, however, stretches further. It’s visceral, an ache of the soul that may resist logical interpretation. Where angst can feel like an abstract storm cloud of thought, angústia anchors itself deep in the chest, carrying the weight of change, uncertainty, and growth. Freud used Angst extensively in his psychoanalytical theories to explore deep emotional states tied to fear, dread, or tension. This word shares both linguistic and emotional roots with angústia, yet even Angst diverges in how it’s used across languages.
It’s fascinating how languages shape emotions differently.
For English speakers who might be unfamiliar with angústia, consider this your chance to borrow the word. It describes that feeling when things seem off, but you can’t quite explain why. Feel free to adopt it,
angústia is all yours now. (with love)
Anxiety traps me—I feel tense, stressed, unable to move. But angústia? It pulls me toward something I can’t describe, like my thoughts and emotions are pouring into poetry before I even realize. It is those times when I have to get up in the middle of the night just to write because the urge is so strong. And lately, it’s made me feel like a different person, almost a stranger to the things I once created.
For the last few months, I’ve been worrying about how much I no longer relate to the things I once wrote. Even though I know this is a natural part of my personal growth – how we change, how we grow, and how we start to feel things in new ways, angústia is tied to it. It’s that unsettling feeling, a discomfort of (maybe unconsciously) facing your own transformation.
The person I was back then is no longer the person I am now, and that gap between who I was and who I am is filled with angústia
But how funny it is... Before I understood that this was angústia, I thought it was anxiety, and I was scared. But now that I know it’s angústia, I feel much better. I feel happy, like it’s my new best friend.
But still, it’s not full happiness. It’s more like a consciously calm feeling, like a word I can’t quite find yet. It’s a bit like something I’ve always known.
Maybe, in time, I’ll find the right word, but for now, I just know it feels better.
Thanks for reading Writing With Mi.