I’ve lived with anxiety and depression for most of my life. I’ve learned how to live with it, but I know that it’s not easy. Maybe hearing about my experience can help you navigate yours.
My mom always knew that I had anxiety, but I was never diagnosed until the summer before 6th grade when my doctor made me take a survey. I always found it odd how doctors can diagnose you with anxiety after only taking a little five minute survey. My doctor asked me a bunch of questions, and it was an overwhelming feeling. Everything that I felt was wrong with me, it all started to fall into place. At the end of what felt like the longest conversation of eternity, she prescribed me medication.
Throughout my middle school years, the medication seemed to be enough for me. I thought after a while that it would go away. I had struggled getting used to taking the medication. Anytime I had a moment of sadness or anger, the first question I was asked was “Did you take your meds today?” I quickly started to hate having to take medication to be able to express emotions. As I progressed with medication in middle school, I slowly came to the realization that this would never go away.
High school was one of the hardest times in my life, but not in the way that you think. I didn’t have any friends in high school and I kept to myself. I lived my life like that day by day. I thought high school was going to be my time to thrive, well I was definitely mistaken. From TV and my family’s perception of high school, I thought that high school was the time to find yourself and to have many of your “first” experiences. That didn’t happen for me because my anxiety got worse. I was afraid to speak up and I was afraid to do anything out of my comfort zone. As much as my family pleaded with me to try, I never did because I never wanted people to see me and find a weakness that could be used against me.
College has been the worst that my anxiety has ever been. Circumstances in my life and that feeling of loneliness in the dark only grew once I started living without my family by my side. I felt this darkness inside of me growing bigger and swallowing me up whole. For a long time, I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t think that there was a happy ending. I started having thoughts that I was better off not here because there was no way that I could ever be happy anyway and I didn’t want my family to constantly worry about me. I got to the point where I was crying every night and I felt hopeless.
I finally told my mom and things started to change. My mom told my entire family, and for a long time, I was mad at her because of it. I already felt bad for telling my mom because she had enough to worry about. However, it was then that I truly realized how much everyone cares about me. We changed my medication and I’m slowly finding resources to help me. I know now that this isn’t going to go away, but there are ways to stop it from controlling my life. I know that I’m going to have my moments, but I have to fight even though the thought of doing so is scary. I believe I can do it and if you feel the same way too, know you’re not alone and there are resources to help.