I was never an anxious person when I was younger. In fact, I was the opposite. I enjoyed adventuring with friends, socializing, meeting new people and trying new things. When the time came to move on to a high school where I knew nobody, I was beyond excited for the transition. The first day of my junior year in high school was when my life turned into a life full of worries, fear, and anxiety, and I until this day I don’t know how or why.

Describing the feeling of Generalized Anxiety Disorder to someone who has never experienced it before is extremely difficult. The only way I have learned how to explain how it feels to others is to have them imagine themselves in an anxiety-induced situation that they can relate to. Imagine the feeling you may get before a big presentation, or the feeling before your first date with someone new. It is the feeling of swimming in the ocean and coming up for air. But instead of taking a breath, another big waves hit you. And when you try again you are hit with another wave, and another, and another, and you are trying to grasp even one breath of air. Now imagine that feeling every single day.

I have gone to four counselors since high school. Three of the four resorted to medication. I knew that I wanted to try getting rid of it on my own, but they were unsuccessful in helping me with that goal. I felt hopeless—like I was going to have this feeling for the rest of my life. I ended up trying a new counselor when I went into college and he told me one thing that turned my life around. I will never forget his exact words: “Your anxiety will never go away. You will be an anxious eighty-year-old woman, but the difference is you will have learned how to cope with the feelings and be okay.” Oddly, telling me that I will be anxious forever reassured me.

Once I was able to understand that this is something I will have forever, I was able to open up to my counselor and discuss different ways to live with this disorder. I am not a licensed counselor, but I highly recommend to those with anxiety to practice the coping mechanisms that I have been using.

The first thing I began to do was to push myself into situations where I didn’t feel comfortable. It started off with small things like introducing myself to the person sitting next to me in class, and it eventually led to larger things like leaving my house to go out with a group of friends.

Because I began pushing myself to do more things that I was anxious about, I experienced more anxiety. But, the next thing I did was I reassured myself. When you are feeling anxious, it is important to tell yourself that you are okay. Sometimes the feeling of anxiety can cause you to feel like you are dying. But if you tell yourself that you are okay--even if you have to say it out loud-- it can be really helpful. I would be in the back seat of a car with my friends taking deep breaths and whispering to myself that everything was okay and that I was all right. It might seem like a silly thing to do (and a silly thing to be anxious about), but I am completely okay with being in that situation now, and practicing that eventually led me to become more comfortable in other situations as well.

The third thing I did to cope with anxiety was to ignore the symptoms. Symptoms of anxiety can include heart racing, chest pain, racing thoughts, restlessness and feeling of impending doom. When I felt all of these symptoms, I would ignore them. I would tell myself that these are just results of my body preparing me for another attack, and it was normal. I would try to think of other things, start conversations with people, go on my phone to play a game, and anything else that could distract me from focusing on the symptoms of anxiety. Now, these symptoms are just like old friends coming back to visit, and I welcome them into my life.

The last thing that I think is the most important is to be open about it. I was able to get myself to talk about it with my friends, and especially my boyfriend. Informing others about the disorder and things that may set it off can allow them to understand you better, and they can help you get through it when they see you are struggling. My best advice to people around me was to not question why I am experiencing the anxiety, but to just hold my hand through it. Because, sometimes you might not even know why you are experiencing it yourself.

One thing I learned when I was told that I had Generalized Anxiety Disorder was that I am not alone. There are a lot of people in my family and of my friends that are in the same boat as me. I have come a long way since my junior year in high school because I have been working really hard to manage my anxiety and understand it better. I hope that this article can help even the slightest bit to anybody reading. And I encourage you not to hide what you are feeling, but to embrace it and face the world with open arms!