Where to begin? Oh, I know! I’ll start from the beginning. I don’t remember what life was like as a kid, but from what my mom tells me, it sure was interesting. My mom has told me I was the perfect baby when it came to naps. Lay your baby down, baby will cry for a minute or so, baby falls asleep – it was like clock work. However, unfortunately for my mom, bedtime didn’t go as well. I would never stop crying, but the second I could see and be held by my mom, I was fine. This behavior carried over to other situations, like riding in the car. If it was light outside I was perfectly content, but as soon as it was dark I would scream cry the whole rest of the car ride. This behavior was later attributed to early signs of anxiety.
My anxiety has haunted me my entire life. I was sleeping in my mom’s bed every night, or sleeping in my room with the big light on. Eventually we worked to get me to a counselor to talk about it. I don’t even remember how many counselors/therapists we tried; we tried so many I don’t know which one actually gave the official anxiety diagnosis. I gave up on therapy for a while, but trust me, once I found the right therapist I never doubted its effectiveness. If you gave up on therapy for any reason, I think you should try a new therapist and give it another try. Your right fit is out there; you might have to look a little harder, but it’s out there.
It got to the point where my anxiety dominated me. The summer before my sophomore year in high school, we decided to try medication to, at the very least, dull the anxiety. After countless medications and different doses, we finally found the best fit. Unfortunately, due to the severity of my anxiety, I am on the highest dose of Sertraline (Zoloft). After I was on this dose for a few months, I was finally able to feel how others felt. My brain was no longer forcing me to spend even seconds obsessing over the “what ifs?”
As if my severe anxiety wasn’t enough, in 6th grade I got my first migraine. At the time, I didn’t really know what was happening, but I remember that moment so vividly. Logically, we figured it was a one time thing, I mean, I didn’t hit my head and it was the first. But soon enough, one turned into two and into three and so on. My mom, the school nurse, my doctors and I tried everything under the sun to figure out what caused these awful migraines. It got to the point where I was at my breaking point. Everyone wanted to keep trying these random things and I just wanted the migraines to go away. No one understood the fact that I just knew deep down none of those things were what caused my migraines. Once we exhausted all options, I got a referral to UW-Madison Neurology. While to this day we still don’t know the cause, I am on medication to help prevent and stop my migraines. For a few months I did Trigger Point Injections, which consisted of a steroid mix being injected into my shoulders and neck – three on each shoulder and two on each side of my spine on my neck. It was slightly painful the first time, but I got used to it. I ended up stopping the injections. It wasn’t that they didn’t work, they just didn’t work as well for me as for others.
What makes it hard with my migraines is that they aren’t consistent. Such as they’re in different places, times of day, and feelings. We don’t know the overall cause, but there are certainly triggers. That goes for my anxiety as well. Since I was born with anxiety and knew nothing different, it has been a struggle to listen to my body’s signs. From the moment we knew it was anxiety and migraines, it was (and still is) an uphill battle to understand even the littlest detail. Add on my A.D.D. and you’ve made the perfect recipe for confusion. I have never been able to focus on fixing just one aspect of my mental health. All three are common illnesses that will work closely together, thus making it impossible to tell what triggers what.
Sometimes I make the joke that I basically have my own pharmacy with the amount of meds I take. While searching for the right medication for you, you learn how medications will have a brand name and “off-brand” manufacturers. Everything about the active ingredients is the same, but the inactive is where they differ. While it is widely thought generic vs. brand name perform the same – it is possible they don’t. Leave it to me to react differently to each brand. I just finished my first semester of college; naturally, I switched my medication to be refilled at a nearby pharmacy. All but one of my medications’ brands were switched without my knowledge. I was in the worst state of mind I’d been in since prior to being medicated. I asked so many questions, requested specific brands and even talked to the pharmacist. I wasn’t taken seriously, and now fill my meds back home and make trips back when I need to pick up a refill. It is so important that you have the meds that work best for you, no matter how specific. You should never feel rude or like a burden when standing your ground.
I know my journey will never come close to other people’s. I used to think because someone had it worse than me, I wasn’t allowed to struggle. Only recently did I finally realize, it’s perfectly okay to struggle. Mental illness isn’t a uniform disease – there are similarities, but it will never be something that should force competitions and comparisons.
It’s funny because even with all the sleepless nights, worrisome thoughts, pounding headaches, tears shed from migraine pain and all the other countless problems, I don’t think I’d change a thing. My mental health and its journey has been far from perfect, but this journey is what helped me be who I am to this day. No matter what happens, it’s important to see the good in even the darkest places. I find myself looking up at the stars and just soaking in the entire night sky. It’s the place I can take comfort in knowing I’m not alone in my struggles.
Though your struggles may seem like they’re unbeatable, keep pushing through and I promise even the smallest things can bring you happiness. I find videos of cute kittens always brighten the worst days.