Anxiety

Do you know what it’s like to live in my shoes? Do you know how it feels to constantly hide how you feel because nobody understands? I live in a world where I have to grin and bear it. These thoughts in my head, always contradicting themselves, constantly running around my head. There are times I feel like I’m drowning and can’t get my way back. But yet, I wear a smile on my face. Why? Why do I do that? Most people don’t understand what it is like to have anxiety and panic attacks. It’s not really talked about making people with it think they are all alone in the battle.

I was not sheltered by any means. I went to public schools. I was in after school programs, soccer, kids church, music lessons, etc. I did it all. I was in all kinds of activities. I was around all kinds of people. At school, I went from being one of the “popular” kids in elementary school to being severely bullied in middle school and high school. I was made fun of because of my weight (I was by no means overweight at this point), I was made fun of because of the people I chose to spend time with, I was even picked on for going to church. Through all of this, my grades drastically suffered in 6th and 7th grades. Hate became the new me. I hated myself. I hated my teachers. I hated my classmates. And then, I threw myself into music. I attended Blue Lake Fine Arts camp. I did more solo work for solo and ensemble festival, I started preparing for Fine Arts Festival, I joined choir... Music became my escape from reality. My GPA at the end of 6th grade was 2.1 while, at the end of my 8th grade year, was 2.9 .

In high school, anxiety was still very much a part of my life. It was especially present during marching band. I felt like all eyes were on me and I would often end up crying. I knew how to hide it though. I skipped presentations and was often picked on for it. Hiding the anxiety became normal after hearing “Don’t worry about it,” “Just do it,” and “The more you do it the easier it gets.” A person can only hear those things so much. It never did get easier. It just got more difficult for me to deal with it. This is also about the time that I started self harming. This went on until a gentleman at my church found out and I started talking to him more.

Fast forward to college. I majored in music. Music majors average 10 classes per semester. I took the max amount of credits every semester. I was in the criminal justice club, art group, streets ministry, Hope Project ministry group, along with getting involved at my church and the Messiah project. I found myself trying to stay as busy as I could to avoid thinking. I couldn’t, and still can’t, have too much time to think or I would have a panic attack. I couldn’t do presentations and missed out on opportunities for solos and performances.

The purpose of writing this is to show everyone that anxiety is a real problem. It’s not something to be taken lightly. I wanted to share some of my struggles to show it’s not just an excuse to get out of doing something. Most of all, I wanted to share some of my story to show others going through the same thing that they are not alone. This is a problem that isn’t talked about often so my biggest problem growing up was I thought I was alone. You are never alone. And please find help if you think you have these issues. That is the best thing you can do, sometimes just talking with someone can ease the mind.