Approximately 25 percent of teenagers have some form of anxiety before they reach adulthood. For many, the symptoms of anxiety vary in each teenager and they manifest in different ways. When an adult experiences a traumatic, life-changing event and it results in anxiety, it's no surprise that they have anxiety. On the other hand, when a teenager experiences something life-changing or having difficulty managing their lives and anxiety result from it, they're just being over dramatic. In the last couple of years, there has been a rise in teenagers with anxiety, and with that, teenage suicide rates have sky rocketed as well, but it isn't until a teenager kills him/herself that their loved ones and society take notice. It isn't until after the damage is done, that everyone notices the teenager was suffering from a very real mental illness and they just couldn't take it anymore.

When many people think of anxiety, they think of someone who has lost their breath and is struggling to breath or someone who is rocking back and forth, crying their eyes out and breaking down. For some people, this is what anxiety looks like, but for others, it's far from what they experience everyday. For some, it could be a heavy weight pushing down on their shoulders, or not wanting to get out of bed because they're so afraid of what the day will bring them, or even simple fireworks going off and making their heart squeeze in their chest and sweat drip down their forehead. Anxiety can take different forms and each person reacts to different situations and events differently based on how their anxiety affects them. It isn't always losing your breath and not finding it or rocking back and forth, too afraid to move an inch. For teenagers, it's holding it in until they've finished that big project for that really important class, or after that exam that'll determine if they graduate or not. It's holding it in for so long until the body and mind can't take it anymore and something snaps. It can be an explosive snap that's destructive to more than just that person or it can be a panic attack that no one was expecting and doesn't know how to handle it. In a teenagers mind, anxiety is a very real thing that can take control of their life and then it can become too late to get help.

A teenagers mind, can be a fragile thing. With puberty hitting and school obligations and other responsibilities, a teenagers mind is more exposed to anxiety. They are expected to not only go to school for 8 hours a day, but to have advanced classes to help them get into college, have a part time job (for most because of financial instability in the home), learn how to drive, take care of younger siblings if they have any, do extracurricular activities, and be an overall well rounded person. I have always loved school, I have always been the bookworm who loved going to school and learning things and making new friends. By the time I finished my freshman year of high school, I began to hate it. By my sophomore year, I was a team commander for my NJROTC program, I had two or three honor classes, and was expected to do volunteer work whenever possible so that it would look good on my future college applications. By my junior year, I was commanding officer, team commander, on multiple teams in NJROTC, had joined the journalism class, still had two or three honors classes that were treated like AP classes, was learning how to drive, responsible for picking up my brother from school, and looking at colleges to go to. My junior year is also when I started having panic attacks.

At first, they weren't that big, just a feeling of being punched in the chest and feeling winded. I would regain composure and go about my day just fine. I didn't think about the fact that I was overloading myself at school and balancing school with my social life could have been a factor in my panic attacks. My senior year of high school, I had two AP classes, one honors class, was executive officer and team commander in NJROTC and began taking on more responsibilities before I passed on the roles to the next leaders in the program, applying to colleges, still responsible for picking up my brother from school, going to tutoring for one of my AP classes, still in journalism and having more responsibility in the class, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. By the end of my senior year, my panic attacks just seemed to get worse. I was embarrassed whenever I had one because I thought it made me look weak and I thought everyone around me was judging me for not being able to handle the pressure of school. I didn't have a job and I didn't have that much going on in my life that I should be panicking about, so why were they happening and why did I feel like I was a failure for not being able to handle the pressure?

My first year in college, it just got worse and worse. I was alone in a state I had never been to before and trying to figure how to manage college. It seemed like I was having a panic attack every other week. I know being home sick and the stress of college was what made them worse, but it was with the intensity of each panic attack that made me more and more afraid. I thankfully had the support of some really amazing friends who helped me calm down and comfort me after each panic attack. It also seemed like my mom just knew something was wrong because she'd call me after each one almost and ask me about my day and that's when I'd break down crying about my panic attack. My first year was hard and my second year was just as difficult, but the panic attacks just evolved into a constant state of anxiousness. There were days when I didn't want to get out of bed but I'd force myself to go to class then I'd come back to my dorm and lay in bed all day. I still did my homework and went to club meetings if I had them and tried to make the most out of my days, but there was just a constant heavy feeling in my chest that made it hard to breath and a constant feeling of dread hanging over my head. Even now, when I'm home, I still feel the ache in my chest and I don't want to talk to anyone. My anxiety isn't always a panic attack after stressing out too much or sitting on the floor of my room, crying and rocking back and forth, gasping for air. Sometimes it's just me, sitting on my bed, watching tv but not absorbing what's going on, or going two full days without texting anyone or calling anyone because I don't have the motivation to talk, or staying awake until 3 am because I can't find a reason to sleep.

The stigmatism surrounding anxiety around teenagers is something that really only adds on to the anxiety. The idea that teenagers don't have a lot to stress about is very unfair and unrealistic because they're still young and are expected to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives in a short few months. I was that teenager just two years ago, on the verge of graduating high school, and expected to meet certain responsibilities and expected to figure out what I was going to do for the next 40+ years of my life. I'm still expected all these things because I'm still young and I'm only going into my junior year of college, so now the responsibilities and expectations are even greater. With that, comes anxiety. For 25 percent of teenagers to experience a type of anxiety disorder before they reach adulthood, is a rather high number, but to me, it's not surprise. Sometimes, the teenager crying over the fact that they got an 89.9 percent on their exam, isn't being over dramatic. Or the athlete who practices for hours until they bleed because they missed that wining shot in last weeks game, isn't being over dramatic. The teenagers who lash out or suddenly break down in tears in the middle of a classroom, isn't being over dramatic, they've just held it in for too long and something snapped. They aren't teenagers who should be brushed aside and told to stop being over dramatic, they're teenagers who need someone to tell them it's okay if they messed up one time. They're teenagers in need of help, before it's too late.