Leah Week 10 - My Anxiety

Usually I wouldn’t write a blog post on something so serious and personal, but here goes nothing. 

As we all know, unfortunately, so many teens of our generation face anxiety everyday. With the pandemic of course, it's gotten so much worse. 

I am one of the many teenagers to battle anxiety. I have always been somewhat anxious. Since I was a child, I would react intensely to anything that is sensory stimulating, such as loud noises like hair dryers and visual images like people dressed up in large, scary costumes. Experiences like these and new environments created a fear response in me, so I would scream and cry because it felt like an attack on my senses. To this day, I still don’t like roller coasters, music that is too loud, and anything similar to these experiences. 

As I got older, the anxiety I felt changed. In the beginning of my teenage years, I would spend hours obsessing over a perfect appearance for no reason. 

In my life, the most difficult event I have had to overcome was the immigration to the United States. I had a tough time adjusting at first, but once I got used to my new life, things got better. I only ever really felt the real effect of the immigration and the pandemic in the form of anxiety recently, this past summer. 

My family bought our first home in the United States after renting for two years, we moved into it in June. I was excited to move and decorate my new room, but quickly after we settled in and all my friends went their own ways for summer, I began to feel lonely. I spent my summer working at the JCC camp as a counselor and I decided to take a week off in July to unpack my things. This was when everything just came crashing down. Another major change and loss in my life was the final straw and I just began to feel terribly scared and anxious all the time, non-stop. I couldn’t eat or sleep. In an attempt to control everything I felt, I began to obsessively make incredibly long to-do lists to feel organized. However, this made everything so much worse.

Things got a bit better after that. I spent hours with my mom talking everything through and figuring out ways to deal with this problem. I am so grateful for the time and support she gave me. 

August came and my friends came home, but I was still feeling anxious. After long discussions, my parents decided on therapy sessions for me once a week and medication to help me manage the anxiety I felt. 

Since summer, I have been so much better. I still feel anxiety often, but I have learnt productive methods to handle it and I made a conscious decision to stop making obsessive to-do lists. 

One of the most difficult things for me now is that sometimes it just takes so much strength and bravery to get up every morning, go to school, and put on a brave face. When I feel proud of myself for finding this courage, it often gets destroyed with some kind of reminder of what I still need to do and accomplish such as chores, homework, SAT prep, and plans I have to go to. 

I know that a lot of you can probably relate to this feeling of fear, but as cliche as this sounds, just remember you’re not alone. Whether it's social anxiety, school-related anxiety, or general anxiety, we are all in it together and we must all uplift and help one another. I hope my story inspires anyone who is struggling with their mental health to step forward and ask for help, I promise it gets better. 

Have you ever had serious anxiety or any other mental-health related issue? If so, how did you cope with it?