Personal Narrative: My Struggle With Anxiety

Upon reading the novel To Kill a Mockingbird I came across a quote which caught my attention. Atticus Finch says, “It’s not time to worry yet,” quite often in this novel and each time I read these six words I can relate. I suffer from a major anxiety disorder and I often worry about things that have happened. Reading these words, I am brought back to memories of my mother telling me the same thing Atticus tells his daughter. My mother reminds me that everything will soon be okay and that my panic is a temporary state. Anxiety is not an easy disorder to deal with, you never really feel safe. So, how do I deal with this?

Ever since I was young I’ve had anxiety. Every single interaction I’ve ever had has been carefully calculated and thought out before it has happened. Every situation has been worried, confused, and excessively mulled over ever since I can remember. Every anger-filled conversation has left me crying and shaking, and every sad one left me worried and sick to my stomach. Headaches were common,

In my freshmen year, I got my first stage management job, as a production assistant on one of my school’s mainstage productions. The majority of those I was working with were graduate students and/or faculty. I was extremely intimidated and I struggled to do any task without apprehension, due to my generalized anxiety disorder. After noting this behavior, I began working on my confidence, in order to mitigate my trepidation, by way of reflection and therapy. When asked to tape out the prop table, rather than asking dozens of questions about which color of tape to use and the ideal position for the breakable wine glass, I just began the task, trusting my judgement. Sometimes I was corrected and had to redo my work, but most of the time, my work

Anxiety is common for people these days. Not just while studying the night before a big test, or before something you’re really nervous for. My anxiety is around all the time. I carry my anxiety with me. My anxiety is undiagnosed, but when you have it, you know. My worries come from the guilt I possess. There’s really no way for me to stop overthinking things, and remembering old things that I feel bad about. Anxiety isn’t a heavy thing to carry most of the time, however, when it surfaces, it becomes the most abundant thing I have with me. When I’m with others, it becomes less of a burden, as they help me carry it, but when I’m alone, it comes back just as strong. Anxiety is sometimes hard to carry because it pairs terribly with depression, something else that stays with me. Depression is probably the worst

Thoughts of the future prevented me from living in the present. I had an internal battle all year long, fighting who I wanted to be with who my mental illness made me be. Classes only added on to my anxious thoughts and I was always, always wondering if I would ever have enough time. Enough time to finish my homework, enough time to accomplish the goals that I had dreamed up, enough time to meet the expectations I held for myself and those that others held for me. C.S. Lewis put my anxiety into a new perspective for me with two sentences, “It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.” (p. 61). My experience with anxiety has changed drastically since freshman year. I have accomplished things this year that I could never see myself doing last year. I can now actually speak up during class and hold a discussion. My anxiety has not gone away completely but my feelings of frustration are nowhere near as bad as they

When it comes to my mental health, I can honestly say so far in my personal life, I have never experienced with any mental health issues. I think that I am very unaware what people go through when they have a mental health issue and I would really like to know more about the different mental health problems. People whom I am close with that have experience with mental health. My sister suffers from anxiety, but not severely. I have a few cousins whom I am close to that have experienced with mental health problems. One of my cousins suffers from the mental illness, anorexia. My sisters and I were very close to her when we were younger, but when her mental illness took over her life, she became a different person.

Living with anxiety is a battle everyday. I wake up and I’m not sure if today will be good or bad. It can start out good, but the next thing I know, I’m having a panic attack. The world around me starts to cave in, and the noise I hear becomes static; it’s as if I’m being swallowed whole. Suffering from a panic attack is incredibly embarrassing. Nobody understands what I’m going through, they all think it’s in my head or that I’m being dramatic. What they don’t understand is that, it’s a real problem. Just like any other illness, anxiety is paralyzing; so are panic attacks. There are days I don’t want to get out of bed because I’m afraid that today is the day everything will end, so it’s just safer to stay in bed. My anxiety is unpredictable,

One time my anxiety almost stopped me from doing something I knew I would really love, is when I got asked to prom. To my best friend, it seemed perfect, we were going to the prom with two guys that were also best friends, buying beautiful dresses, and looking forward to such a magical night. To me, it was plainly trying to get through the night painlessly. I remember wanting to cancel so badly, even after I had purchased everything and made tons of plans. On the day of prom, my nerves were awful and I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my body. But you know what? I had an amazing

This feeling was unusual because as a youngster, I spent most of my childhood going on acting auditions and

That is one of the most important things I learned—I never called it, “my anxiety”, this isn’t something I own, it is not a part of me, and it certainly does not control me. As out-of-control as I often felt, something deep inside me kept yelling “you are in control”.

When I was little, I was suffering with illness anxiety disorder. A minor symptom or body sensation would easily make me think that I have some kind of serious illnesses. It was all started back when was six, when my grandpa was diagnosed with cancer. He died after a year battle with cancer. However, everything changed when I was in the summer of third grade, when I noticed that one of my breasts was unusually bigger than the other. I didn’t tell my parent after a while because I did not like the idea of going to the hospital. I hated hospitals, I hated the smell and the feelings of being there; the last time I was there was when I was visiting my grandpa.

After being hospitalized for meningitis when I was eleven years old, I began to struggle with anxiety and a stutter. Although I did not have these problems before my illness, no one is certain that meningitis was the cause.

One source of stress is “Chronic Stress.” Chronic stress means stress that is experienced for an extended period. One example from my personal life that was a chronic stress was my family and work stress. I think family and work problems of my own example connect because they fell under the same category and correlated with each other. A specific example is my mom forced me to figure basic skills myself such as driving. I was in and out of jobs and found myself having to figure out how to get to work. I could not depend on anyone to take me anymore and the bus system was undependable. I did nor deal with it the way I wanted at the time. I had just finished up an internship and found an excellent job but found myself having to figure out how to get to work. My cognitive

"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy." (www.healthy place.com) Many people have trouble accomplishing what they want to do in life because of health issues. A main health issue people suffer from is anxiety. There are different types of anxiety disorders you can have. Each one of them hold you back from doing what you want to succeed in life and may even cause you to make bad choices.

The first time I had a panic attack I thought I was dying. My mind started spinning, my vision got blurry and the lights in my room began to burn my eyes. My breathing was labored, I felt like my lungs were going to collapse, my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. My limbs went numb, my mind wouldn’t stop racing, too many thoughts were going through my mind, I couldn’t control myself any longer. I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear myself. Everything was silent except for the steady beating of my heart.