It’s commonly stated that when ostriches experience danger or stress, they promptly bury their head in the sand and wait for the storm to pass. While this tactic may work well for our proverbial feathered friends, it is difficult and unhealthy for us humans to hide from all of our problems. Instead, we face them, to the best of our abilities. This means taking responsibility for our actions and accepting fate; in other words, this means growing up.

As obvious as this life lesson may appear to be, I have struggled throughout my life to learn it. In a desert full of ostriches hiding from their problems, I was the largest of them all, with my head buried deepest in the sand.

In 7th grade, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and anxiety. Though in no way a critical discovery, it was personally life altering. Since I was 8 years old I had often fought to stay focused and organized, a dilemma that had me frequently falling behind on my schoolwork. I was caught up in a stressful array of missing assignments and deadlines, of which my anxiety only heightened the pressure I was under.

I was like an active volcano about to erupt, with my metaphorical explosion coming in the form of a panic attack. With a dizzying headache that bloomed whenever I attempted to move beyond the fetal position, bringing with it a wave of nausea, I was out of commission for two to three days. I told others and myself that I was sick, but my mom knew better. “You can’t just bury your head in the sand just because you don’t want to go to school, Alexa,” she’d tell me, to which I’d fiercely argue. Though, as always, she was right.

The days I missed due to a panic attack only had me falling farther behind, and around the time of my diagnosis I was having one at least once every other month. Hard as I tried to hide from my stress and responsibilities, though the world continued to turn. My responsibilities never just disappeared because I ran from them; in fact, it often made everything thing worse as they continued to pile up around me.

Although running and hiding are reasonable tactics for animals to escape their problems, my survival called for a different type of action: ownership. Realizing this was my first step towards maturity and shedding my ostrich feathers for good.

Though in no way have I conquered my ADD completely, my ability to control it (and my stress) in a healthy and mature manner speaks volumes of how far I’ve come. With the support of my parents and counselor, understanding from my teachers, and my medication, I’ve slowly moved away from my ostrich-like ways, and instead focus on facing my problems directly. The time I’ve spent working with my counselor on managing my stress has taught me valuable problem-solving skills and allowed me to grow as an individual.
Since beginning my treatment, I now experience less than one panic attack a year, and most often, I am able to spot and defeat it before it becomes too blown out of proportion. The road to enlightenment and self-awareness is never an easy one to take, yet I am proud to say I’m on my way. I have evolved from the child unwilling to pull her head out of the sand, to the young woman I am today, armed with the knowledge to face my problems head on. It is a lesson I believe everyone must learn at some point in order to begin the transition to adulthood. For if one stays an ostrich forever, one will never learn how to fly.