I’ve always struggled with handling stress and anxiety. Looking all the way back to elementary school, I spent a lot of time worrying about grades and attendance. I look back with regret because all of that time should’ve been used doing things kids do, not worrying about having all A’s on a report card that wouldn’t matter in the long run.
When I started middle school and my anxiety became completely uncontrollable, I spent many nights wondering when I would ever stop feeling the way I felt. I told myself that one day, I’d get help and I’d never feel this way again. Although it was a comfort at the time, it was, unfortunately, an outright lie.
When you experience trauma, anxiety, depression or self-harm, you can’t just return to normal. There’s always some little part of you that remembers how it feels to be abandoned or desperate, like so many people are. Even when your life is good, sometimes those little feelings just pop up and remind you.
I have found a way to use those moments. When I feel my brain telling me that things could be worse, I respond with, “Yes, it could.” I wish that made the feelings I’ve always had just drift away, but it doesn’t. It does help me control them, though.
The one result of generalized anxiety that I just didn’t expect was how I’d feel when I see someone else’s panic attack. It’s almost like how some people vomit if they hear another person getting ill. Seeing someone begin to panic or just become overwhelmed can send me into a panic attack. I feel my head get fuzzy and my throat begin to tighten. The flow of oxygen throughout my body seems to stop and I become weak.
No one is to blame for this, of course. Luckily, I’ve learned how to deal with these situations – or how to excuse myself if I can’t deal with it.
This isn’t to say that your life can’t greatly improve after suffering from anxiety and depression. In fact, I’m saying the opposite. When I’m alone in my room at night, I close my eyes and remember my friends and the people who support me, not anything else. That took a lot of time and work. I had to figure out which people I could be around and the ones I couldn’t.
Saying goodbye to a phase in your life doesn’t mean that it’s gone. It means that it’s in your history, which will always be a part of you. Growth from pain is the greatest thing any of us can experience.