When I was younger, my greatest fears consisted of spiders, snakes, and dying when my brother or friends bounced me too high up on the trampoline. Now, my greatest fears are looking ridiculous when I go out in public, being in too big of a crowd, and failing at basically anything in life.
I've been dealing with anxiety for, well, all of my life. I've been on medicine after medicine until about two years ago when I started weaning off of it all. I was doing well until this past semester, where it all crashed at once and I find it difficult to think straight a majority of the time. My grades are harder to keep up with when I had A's and B's last semester. I lost my job and my relationships with people are rocky at best.
I have anxiety attacks quite often and when I do, it's the worst. I lose my ability to speak, I stare at absolutely nothing and can't move. My friends and family find this pretty annoying because all they want to know is what is wrong and I can't explain. My mother likes to describe it as "taking over my life" and she honestly isn't right. I've mentioned my anxiety in so many of my articles including my latest and my least viewed.
Everyone needs help sometimes. I have no shame in saying that on Wednesday I'm restarting my therapy sessions, just to help get my mind straight and to help me control something in my life. I'm tired of the shaking hands and the constricting throat at every turn of the road. I'm tired of hiding from people I know and tired of backing out of things that I would enjoy just because I'm scared or too anxious to give it a try.
Life is way too short to spend with shaking hands and teary eyes. It's a hard thing to explain to some people and to this day I still hear people tell me that anxiety is just an excuse to not do something. It's not that I don't want to do whatever that thing is. It's that I physically and mentally cannot bring myself to.
Please, be patient with those who have anxiety, we're really trying our best but sometimes we need a little help and a little space to breathe.
