My Anxiety Journey

Anyone who knows me knows I am incredibly open about just about anything in my life. I think it’s important to be honest about whatever I can, just in case it can help someone else. I try to be very open about my anxiety, because I know it’s something a lot of people are struggling with or something that others need more information about.

A couple months ago, I had reached a really good point in my life, and coming back home for the summer kind of threw everything off the rails. I think everyone can relate to the weirdness I felt as I came home for the summer. I had to say goodbye to my best friends I’d been with for the past nine months. All of my friends from high school are all the same, yet we’re all so different. My anxiety always seems to come up when I come home or head back to school, and this summer was no different. Max and I also broke up soon after I got home and that’s been another emotional factor in my life. All of these changes together have tested my anxiety a bit.

Because of all of these changes in my life, I’ve felt a pull on my heart to write about my anxiety journey. To get it all out there and lay myself vulnerable. I’ve talked about my anxiety a lot, but I’ve never written a post about my whole anxiety journey. Lately I’ve been waking up with some of the worst anxiety I’ve felt in a while, and I knew it was time to share.

I hope this post teaches everyone something; whether you learn a little bit more about what it means to have anxiety or learn that you’re not alone.

I’ve always been a worrier. It’s probably a little bit of who I was meant to be and a little bit of how I was raised. Much like my mom, I love to plan and worry. These two factors sometimes make my life a lot easier, but sometimes I end up in a ball of stress. Growing up, I never thought much of my worries; I just tried to keep it in check. I had never thought that these worries meant I had anxiety, and for much of my early life I don’t think I had anxiety.

I think (really, I know) I developed my anxiety junior year. I think it was a mixture of nature and nurture. I know anxiety is a chemical imbalance, but I think my worries and habits contributed to that imbalance.

I had been told for a long time that junior year was the most important year for college applications. Being the forward-thinker that I am, I was determined to make my junior year count. I stepped up in everything I was in… and I stretched myself way too thin.

During the first semester of my junior year, between heavy school work, seven dance classes, and extracurriculars, I was constantly going. I was stressed and it was showing in my mental and physical health: I was getting about six hours of sleep, I lost about twenty pounds, and I was constantly stressed. My mind was always running. After dance, I would come home to do homework and I would just start bawling. I couldn’t explain it, I was just emotional and exhausted.

I have always been independent, so when I reached this rough point in my life, I was sure that it was something I could take care of myself. I didn’t really ask for help, but I gained some perspective and learned to let some things go. So, for a while, my anxiety journey was “put on hold”, for lack of a better phrase.

Then… Fast forward to freshman year of college.

I’ve written a lot about my freshmen year and some of the struggles I felt, so I won’t bog down this post with a lot about my freshmen year experience. I felt sad and alone often, like many others feel their first semester, and struggled a lot with all the changes I encountered. My whole life looked different and it was hard to adapt.

But perhaps one of the biggest ‘red flags’ from freshman year were the emotional breakdowns I would have, that I now know are anxiety attacks. One came in a checkout lane of Target, where my parents and I were buying various things for my dorm at the beginning of the year. Something about seeing the triple digit price really set something off in me, and all of a sudden, I could hardly get a deep breath. I was freaking out, and my mom suggested that I sit away from the checkout to calm down.

Another attack came after I returned from fall break (I said my anxiety is triggered with changes in schedule). I had flown in from Lincoln that evening and returned to my dorm room. When I set my suitcase down and saw what needed to be unpacked (which was literally just a carry-on suitcase, but anxiety has a way of skewing our perspectives) I was overwhelmed by how much I had to do to get back into the swing of things. I burst into tears and felt completely helpless and overwhelming.

So, after a lot of emotional turmoil and tear-filled phone calls, my mom convinced me to go to the Counseling Center on campus. TCU has an amazing counseling center made to help any student with any emotion they’re feeling. There, I began weekly counseling with an amazing counselor, Felice. She really helped me realize that the feelings I was experiencing were completely valid and nothing I should apologize for. I learned how to maintain perspective in situations.

Felice also taught me a lot about being present; my anxiety tends to come in the form of my brain constantly moving, so a lot of my anxiety could be reduced by slowing down my brain. I actually took a six-week meditation and mindfulness class offered by the counseling center, per request of Felice. My meditation class taught me a lot about mindfulness. My anxiety skews my perspective, but through meditation and mindfulness, I can (at least sometimes) bring myself back to a place of calmness and understanding. I am able to remember that few things are as make or break as my anxiety likes to make them seem.

However, after sometime some of my anxious feelings still persisted, Felice recommended that I see the center’s psychiatrist and see if she recommended anxiety medication for me. It was with the psychiatrist that I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and put on a low dosage prescription to help with my anxiety. I was eager to get on the meds, for any help with my anxiety, but my parents (rightfully so) were very nervous to go on meds that were so unknown to us. However, I bit the bullet and started taking the meds.

I’ve been on the meds since, and have to meet regularly with the psychiatrist to check my progress and make sure that my meds are still doing their job. Being on the meds has been such a blessing for me. I used to wake up every morning feeling dread and a tightness in my chest just to start the day. However, now I wake up and know that I can tackle the day. I’ve maybe only had one anxiety attack since being on the meds. The medications just really brought me to a place of calmness that used to feel unattainable. As nervous as my parents were, they agree that the meds have helped bring me back to the person that I was supposed to be.

I’ve been surrounded by such support by my family and friends. My parents always want the best for me, and were supportive through every up and down. My friends were so understanding and always there to listen. They know what my anxiety looks like and what I have to do to take care of myself. Some of my friends have had their own struggles with anxiety and they’ve been such a great resource and blessing in my life. While Max and I are no longer together, he was my rock throughout that process; he was there when I was nervous about medications and when I was having anxiety attacks and when I was healthy again. The support of everyone around me is what kept me going when it felt scary and hopeless.

I know there are a lot of disputes out there about the legitimacy of anxiety. As someone struggling with this mental health disorder, I can say that anxiety is so real for me. It’s probably a mixture of nature and nurture, and there’s a chemical imbalance inside of me, but it is real.

I know that anxiety looks different for everyone. This was just my story. Anxiety for me meant that my brain was always going, I was overly emotional, there was a tightness in my chest, my perspective was skewed, and I would feel worked up and unable to calm down for no reason at all.

For anyone out there that may be feeling similar to how I used to feel, know this: you are not alone. At all. This is not your fault. At all. And you don’t have to handle this yourself. There are so many resources and people who want to make you feel better. I found a peacefulness that I hadn’t felt in a long time. You can get healthier, through counseling, meditation, or medication. You deserve to feel better.

This was my anxiety journey. Thanks for reading.

The quote that got me through.

#worry #July2017 #relationships #anxiety #life #family #college #lessonslearned