This past July, I found myself on a plane across the world. I had been planning for a year to travel to Australia with International Student Volunteers. In June, I was assigned to volunteer in Tasmania, a small island off Australia’s southern coast. Being the natural born worrier that I am, I worried. I worried about how cold it would be (it’s Australia’s winter), the rustic conditions we would be living in, and the difficulty of the conservation work we’d be completing. Even considering all this, the worry at the forefront of my mind was that of my anxiety. I was terrified that I would have a panic attack while abroad. I was scared that I would break down in the most unfamiliar place I’d ever been to, surrounded by strangers who had no idea how to help.

It was hard at first. Our accommodation for the first week was a shearer’s shack, lacking central heating and attached bathrooms. With the sun going down at 4 p.m., it was perpetually dark and cold. I slept in four layers, zipped up tight in a sleeping bag, and still woke up with chills in the late hours of the night. Each morning, we embarked at 8 a.m. and walked through miles of Tasmanian wetlands to cut a tree-like weed called gorse all day, every day.

Some may think this was the trip from Hell, but they’d be wrong. I spent the second two weeks exploring Australia’s mainland, doing all sorts of activities up and down the eastern coast. But this adventure wouldn’t have been anything without my volunteer work. This was because those first two weeks shoved me out of my comfort zone. By being thrown into such a rustic setting with eight strangers as my bunkmates, I was forced to step out of the shell that a worried, anxiety-ridden person like me puts up. And when I was able to do that, I slowly came to the realization that my anxiety wasn’t acting up like it used to.

Being on a private nature reserve, I was surrounded by land that many will never be granted permission to see. It was calm and cold, and so secluded that the stars glowed brighter than I had ever seen them before. Away from all the hustle and bustle of my average life, my anxiety slowly began to dissipate. An unfamiliar place began to feel like home in a matter of days.

On my final day of volunteering, we went to work at the biggest, spikiest gorse plants I had seen thus far. They were all five feet tall and incredibly difficult to work through, but when we finished we realized there was a small tree fighting to grow between the suffocating weeds. We posed with it and smiled brightly, happy to be done with our work for the day.

It was only later on that I realized how much that little tree related to my once anxiety filled life. I felt like that tiny tree was desperate to grow past my anxiety. My time in Australia was to me what I was to that plant. Spending time abroad cut the anxiety out of my life. Without it, I finally felt free of that choking feeling so commonly associated with panic. I no longer felt like I was suffocating; finally, I could just breathe.

I have Australia to thank for this experience, as well as all the beautiful people who helped make my trip abroad as great as it was. International Student Volunteers changed my life and my outlook. Going abroad was the best decision I ever made, and I encourage each and every student that reads this to do the same.