Growing up I knew something wasn’t right in my brain. I knew I was ‘off’ in some way when my feelings constantly got hurt because my best friend would hang out with other friends. I wasn’t jealous but worried she liked them better than me. I was scared she would hang out with them so much and forget me in the end. This never went away, in fact this anxiety and paranoia only continued to grow, as I got older. I began to constantly feel this way but no one ever believed there was something wrong. I can’t blame them; I was a teenage girl crying all the time. That seems pretty normal in most peoples view. But, for me, in my brain, it was chaos. I cried and had panic attacks to the point of getting sick and not eating. I was so scared of what people thought of me that when I heard anything negative I was heart broken. This isn’t something that has ever gone away.

Now 21, about to be 22 I still struggle with my anxiety on a daily basis. In fact, just hours prior to writing this I was having an emotional break down because a friend didn’t invite me out but, I’m here to tell you something so important, I’m okay. You see my anxiety has ruined friendships, relationships and any potential for the two. It puts strain on my friends now and on me. It hurts in so many ways and I know everyone of them is irrational. I know when I get upset I shouldn’t be upset, but I can’t ‘get over it’ or ‘calm down’. In fact someone uttering those words makes it so much worse because I know I should calm down and get over it but I can’t so I get more upset because I should be able to.

My anxiety plagues me with horrible thoughts about myself. I believe every negative thing a person can think and get upset when I see my friends with other people. Not because I don’t want them to be happy, but I think I’m forgettable. I think if they hang out with other people they won’t want or need me. If I send them a text and they don’t answer, chances are I think they ignored me, even if it wasn’t anything of the sort. If I ask to hang out and they can’t I think they just don’t want to. Anxiety is tricky because I know how silly it is to feel this way. I am in constant fear of what people think of me. Physically, how I act, what I say, emotionally, anything you can judge a person off of, I will worry about. I just can’t make my brain turn off long enough to reset my thinking and this all goes back to, my brain is sick.

You see when an organ is sick; when a bone is broken we fix it. We scan it, take medicine, brace it, but when the brain is sick we are expected to get over it. If you scan the brain of someone who is healthy and happy it lights up, it’s working well and with no issue. But, just like a sick organ or broken bone, when you scan the brain of someone is depressed, anxious or mentally ill in anyway, in looks extraordinarily different. Because the brain is an organ, it can get diseases and it can get sick. You never tell someone with bronchitis or a broken arm, to calm down and get over it; I guess I’m just curious when one of the most, if not the most important organ is sick, why we say that?

I fight my anxiety everyday. Just a year ago the man I thought I was going to marry one day left and I don’t hate him. In fact I forgive him and apologize because I know my anxiety is a big role in the break up, I just wish he had told me sooner that it was a strain so I could have eased it. But, when that happened I decided to go on medicine for it. I really struggle in my faith to medicate myself but in the end came to peace and understanding that if my brain is sick I should try and help it. I tried two different medications and in April went off. The last medicine made me gain weight and we decided to try an experiment. You see I was on medicine long enough that when social situations came up where I normally got upset, on medicine I didn’t. So when I was off I was able to compare the two and work through it better. Medicine had given me the tools to work through situations without crying myself into a mess.

Why I’m telling you all of this today is truly for one purpose, I want you to look at mental illness differently. Look at it for what it is, an illness, disorder, disease, broken, hurting, exhausting. If I could get over it, I would. If I could calm down and stop thinking about it, trust me I would. If I could take a pill to get rid of it permanently, I would in a heart beat. But, I would never forget the feelings I’ve had and experiences from it. My anxiety has given me more empathy, understanding, and patience. It has given me the ability to love thy neighbor and truly love them. It’s made me learn to be patient when others are hurting or going through something because I know what it’s like to have someone walk away when I need him or her.

Mental illness isn’t an easy subject. It’s hard to explain and talk about, because everyone’s case is a little different. My anxiety and triggers are much different than your friends and vice versa. But what we have in common is we didn’t choose it. Whether you were born with it or something truly traumatic happened, you are not alone and be patient. The world is only catching up and learning about what we have.