Does anyone here with anxiety actually tell their boss/partner/colleagues about it?

I did tell one of my bosses about it this winter (I get SAD), but he's a licensed mental health worker, so it's a bit different. (Plus, he was on my case trying to get me to do some crisis-intervention work and I freaked out enough that I started crying, and you pretty much can't ever start crying in front of a therapist in a professional setting and not then discuss what's wrong.)

I didn't go into details, though; more of a "I'm having issues with SAD, it's making things hard right now, and I really can't handle what you're asking me to do" sort of thing. I suspect he backed off quickly because asking a crying person who claims to be having trouble holding it together to go do grief crisis intervention is close enough to unethical as to not make it worth the bother.

Heh. Yeah, some people at work know about both of my SADs, but not in my chain of command. I might mention "winter blues" or "kinda grumpy". Sometimes I'll use my kids as a shield "up late with small demons".

I do tell the Ex if I'm in a downward spiral so he knows I'm not brushing him off if I don't respond the way he's expecting. He does the same for me.

Oof, occhi. I started crying over something in my boss' office. I think I'd said one thing at a big meeting where he hadn't been present, when what he'd wanted was the opposite. Which meant I'd have to call all those bigwigs back and correct myself. I had the excuse of being 7 months pregnant, though.

You know it just sucks. If you have diabetes or epilepsy, you can tell them, heck, you're encouraged. But look how normal we are being about hiding the mental stuff!

And this is true in the most progressive workplaces, too.

If you have diabetes or epilepsy, you can tell them, heck, you're encouraged.

It still can be dangerous to do so, however. There's still plenty of discrimination, overt and covert, for physical disabilities and medical conditions.

I have a handful of quotidian phobias that induce panic and anxiety. I'm incapable of living with someone without disclosing that and without them being sensitive to my anxiety or anxiety disorders in general. I would never in a million years be able to tolerate hearing that they're stupid. Because, what, I thought they were totally productive and awesome until someone came along to remind me how stupid they are? I guess they could find out how stupid my anger is too.

One of the owners at my flower shop holds a masters in clinical psychology and has taught at the college level.

I can't decide it that's good or bad. ;-)

At our place, code for 'I need some personal time so y'all need to just leave me be for a bit' is "I need to go shelve some things/pull some orders/do some work in module 40."
(Our modules end at 39. Or we just say that we're hunting for a missing, which is a very solitary activity.)

It works for all sorts of situations and we just don't ask questions when someone whips out that line. However, if you start crying and you are not in the vestibule, questions are permitted.

Yeah, like you choose what to be anxious about. Pee in his cornflakes too!

I can recall only three times that I cried at work and one of them is when my grandmother died (mum called me at work, she was at work too). That's amazing now that I think about it. Except ...I know I was pretty shut down emotionally for a long, long time. That probably explains it.

I'm now having an anxiety attack about people doing strange things with my shoes and breakfast cereal.

I'm totally open with it, but I'm in academia. In fact, I'm so open with it that I ask my students in my Independent Living class when we talk about prejudice against people with affective disabilities, "Do you have a picture in your mind of what someone with OCD looks like?" Then I wave my hand and say, "I'm right here!" My openness helps me connect with students who are wrestling with the same things.

In addition to the OCD (mostly controlled), I take meds for depression. I am open about this to my boss (department head), because I have a couple quirky accomodations: 1) Sometimes, when my meds fail, I end up having a few rocky days till the docs try a new one on me; 2) my meds almost always make me sleepy some time during the day, and I have a nap break built into my schedule.

Again, I am in the US and I am in academia, AND I am tenured. I am using my advantage as a tenured professor as a way to make people aware that it's just another medical condition that has to be managed. But I guess I can afford to.