Born At 28

Never in my life had I imagined a day where I could wake up, stretching my arms to the sky as the goose bumps danced along my skin....without that feeling. That deep rooted anguish that floods in after that painfully short second of nothingness. That second when you wake up and for a moment you are unaware of the pain. A second of mercy before reality sets in, overpowered by that pit in your stomach and that growing hole in your chest.

I didn't think that it was possible to wake up loving life or to even understand its true purpose at all. For years I had questioned who I really was, every 365 days burying myself down deeper yet craving this destination that I refused to seek. It was an endless hell living within Generalized Anxiety Disorder. There hadn't been a day where happiness seemed achievable. I couldn't hang out with my friends without worrying who was talking about me. Plans began to get cancelled because, well, I could die after all. Then came the moment when I had to make a decision.

My anxiety had been the worst it had ever been. I'd been constantly surrounding myself with relationships that no longer served me, clinging to some type of normalcy in the disrespect. I'd quit my job to "find myself" and while that felt powerful, I had no way of knowing that this decision would inevitably force me to sink or swim. This situation had humbled me in ways that made me more uncomfortable than the feeling right after that split second in the morning.

For months I searched for meaning. I wasted so much time planning rather than doing and one day life became so overwhelming that I knew it was time to make decisions that reflected the life I truly wanted. The only problem was that I hadn't known myself, let alone what I wanted from the world. It seemed like a cycle I was struggling to find the motivation to repeat.

Until with a shaky voice, a sweaty hand, and knots the size of Texas in my gut, I picked up my phone to make a call I'd been avoiding for years. Accepting that anxiety had essentially won was a hard pill to swallow until I realized that anxiety didn't have to win at all. I had spent so much time planning, preparing, and sitting. Repeating on a rinse and spin cycle over and over again while I asked myself why things weren't changing. But that is the definition of insanity after all, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. There was comfort in the victimhood. I knew there were many reasons why I'd become this anxious shell and while those reasons comforted me, they quickly became excuses, void of accountability.

When the call ended an appointment was schedule for a day that I had no idea would change my life. I'd finally received medication for the anxiety that had been clinging to my back for nearly my whole life. As I continue this journey through loving and understanding myself it truly feels like I've only just started living. I hadn't the slightest clue that true happiness was achievable without the expectations of perfection. Breaking away the parts of me that were hard on myself, talked down to who I wanted to be, hated who I was, or didn't stop to understand the way others have seen me became a mission that flipped the light on in my heart.

I am living with anxiety. I call her Lady Darkness. And while she lives to destroy. I take pride in knowing that my pride didn't let her destroy me.