It all started when I was ten.
I was spending the night at my grandmother’s house for the first time – alone. I previously had issues being left alone; I was the kid that cried and got picked up from sleepovers. It had never been a problem before because my saint of a mother always picked me up, no questions asked. This time was different.
As I got ready for bed, I felt the feeling sneaking up on me. The churning of my stomach, the sweat, the feeling at the back of my throat. I went to lay down, and as I laid there, it just got worse. The room felt like it was getting smaller. I was seeing shadows of monsters that ten-year-olds relentlessly believe haunt them at night. I could feel it coming. As the hot tears formed in my eyes, I booked it for the bathroom. Then, the crying started. That’s the thing I’ve since learned about my panic attacks —once the tears start it feels nearly impossible to stop them. The room spun and warped itself into a shape-shifting coffin— and I couldn’t breathe. I don’t remember much from that episode, being that I was ten and don’t remember most of the specifics of a panic attack. My mom must have woken up to thirty missed calls the next day. I was not “just nervous”.
The second one happened around the same age, shortly after my parents’ divorce. I was supposed to spend the night with my dad, in his new place. On the drive home from our family event, I felt it again. The feeling of terror about this new place, the tightness in my throat, and the closing of the walls. Even ringing in my ears. I once again started to break down. Not because I didn’t love my dad or want to spend time with him, but because the thought of staying the night somewhere foreign as a young girl was terrifying. Without getting into my psychological profile, this was a pattern that was forming. I cried, I struggled to breathe, and I could not under any circumstances get a grip on my fear. This was scary. I couldn’t tell why I was crying, or why my body felt like it was being wrapped in a sweaty blanket, or even why I was scared to go. I just wanted it to stop. And it wouldn’t. That night haunts me to this day because I felt guilty for subjecting everyone around me to my emotional state at the time. I felt embarrassed that I had no control. Uncontrollable tears, sweat, contractions, and convulsions— all scary things for a kid to experience without any idea about what is happening to their body. I was not “just nervous.”
Flash forward a couple years. I’m a preteen, left in charge of my brother on a weeknight. My mom had just gone to get groceries, and my brother and I were watching TV. She said that she would be back at nine. As the hour drew closer, I started to get that feeling again. Then it was nine. Then five after, then ten. The walls started to close in, and my breathing became shakier. She was late, I thought. Something had happened to her. I began to think the worst— she had gotten in a horrific crash, she was mugged, or even killed. As I started to cry and my body started to flush, I managed to run over to the neighbor’s house and ask to use their phone. I called until she answered, barely able to breathe. She was almost home, and she turned the corner two minutes later. She was fifteen minutes late, and to me, that meant the worst. I couldn’t keep my brain from going to that place, and I had no idea why. I was not “just nervous.”
Flash forward five more years. I’m a sophomore in high school. I was struggling in Honors Chemistry, a class I arguably should NOT have been in. I remember the unit – Stoichiometry. I really wasn’t understanding much in that class, even though I studied. I was incredibly frustrated and felt incredibly dumb. Everyone around me seemed to be acing the class and had a good rapport with the teacher, something I obviously did not have because I was failing. We had a test, and earlier that day I learned that my great-grandmother had been hospitalized for a stroke. I was terrified for her, as her age made the situation dire and uncertain. I was already not confident and in the midst of a fairly hopeless state of being – one I would very soon become used to. When I sat down and looked at the paper, there it was again. I started to read through the problems, very quickly realizing that I remembered nothing from my studies, and had no idea what I was doing. I started to panic, and the page became blurry. My hands started to shake. So much, that I could barely write. I remember putting my head down on my desk to hide my tears as the shaking grew stronger, and my body started to become flushed. I attempted to finish the test, but my body and brain just couldn’t. I had to go to the nurse’s office after that. My aunt came to pick me up from school, and I slept for the rest of the day. This is when I can remember my panic attacks becoming worse – and more debilitating. I was not “just nervous.”
Senior year. I’m in AP Calculus, a class I once again should NOT have been in. I don’t think I’ve felt as much doubt in my intelligence as I did in that class. Every class period was one more knock to my confidence, making me feel less and less capable every day. The number of times I got tear stains on a homework assignment because I was crying over my lack of understanding was far too many. As I started slipping into the depression that I was unfortunately wrapped in for most of that year, the class just continued to layer on the anxiety. Every bad grade was a blow. I started having panic attacks more regularly. If you were my classmate and saw me leave the room during a test – yes, I was freaking out in the bathroom. It happened at home, too. It got to the point where whenever I looked at a note packet my body would flush, it would sweat, and my hands would shake. I knew that it was the preface for one more exam I would fail. I cried so uncontrollably that I couldn’t think straight. That happened a lot in school that year. The panic that I wasn’t smart enough, or that this was just the beginning of the slippery slope of failures, or that my teachers and parents were disappointed in me. It became completely consuming, and a lot of the times I shut down from the extreme levels of anxiety that continued to force me down like a weighted blanket. I was not “just nervous.”
I am now a sophomore in college, and I understand that I’m not a freak because this happens to me. All my life I felt like a baby, like I wasn’t able to handle life’s rough punches. I felt absolutely hopeless, like I was never going to be able to overcome these feelings or be “normal.” But I’m not alone, and neither are you. My family has been a great support system, and my friends have helped me to see that I am not a lost cause. Anxiety is a disorder, but it doesn’t define me. There are so many people that go through the same struggles I do every day, even if it goes unnoticed. I want these people to know you are not alone. Through psychiatry, medication, and therapy, I’ve been able to better understand why I feel the way I do and why my body and brain behave the way they do. I strongly encourage anyone who can relate to my experiences to look into it.
My struggle with anxiety has been long and confusing. I thought that there was something wrong with me and that I was an inconvenience to others because I had these episodes. After years of what seems like a war, I now know this isn’t true. I am not broken. I have learned how to help myself, and I’ve learned that having this disorder does not make me weak. I am strong, I have anxiety, and I am not “just nervous.”