I have anxiety, all my sisters do. Some people I am close with have also struggled with really bad depression. My mom and her entire family have a strong connection [to anxiety]. [I wasn’t diagnosed] until like my sophomore year of high school. It was so weird. It showed up like in school. When I had a huge research paper to do, I got so nervous and terrified of messing up or doing something wrong that I never started it. So like my sophomore year was so bad. I was so nervous to do something in school that I just didn’t participate.
When I forget to take my medicine it is really weird, just bizarre because of the physical withdrawal symptoms. Anti-anxiety meds have horrible withdrawal symptoms. So you’ll deal with physical symptoms and then also the anxiety just gets so weird. Medicine typically can wear off. So if I take it in the morning it will wear off say, by 5pm, so then at night if I don’t get to sleep soon enough I can have anxiety attacks. So on days that I don’t take my medicine, that could happen at any part of the day. It is really risky and kind of scary.
When I do open up fully about my anxiety, it can really seem annoying. Like every single day I am just getting nervous about whatever. It does kind of make me nervous that they are annoyed by this or that and that is anxiety in and of itself. It is kind of a little circle, but I confide in my mom for a lot of it and she is so understanding and I am really glad that I have her to talk about it with.
To an extent, I have met a lot of people who are so careful about mental health that it is also crippling. There was one girl who was like, “I don’t know what to say or do so you tell me how to address you.” It was the oddest situation ever. She knew that I had anxiety and she was so worried about affecting my anxiety that she didn’t want to connect with me. It was bizarre. It just didn’t make sense. I feel like awareness would be fabulous and education would be fabulous but some people will feel like they do not have to worry about that and they should not have to be burdened with that.
