Living with Anxiety

Anxiety is a real thing. I have had anxiety since I was seven years old. Well this was the first time that I realized I had bad anxiety. One time I went on a vacation with my family and while I was on vacation in the caribbean I stayed at a playgroup that day, the teacher who was working at the playgroup could tell how anxious I was because she noticed that I wasn’t trying to play with the other kids and that I was uncomfortable. She gave me something called worry people and I was at first confused what these meant. She explained that down in the islands these worried people were something that you would put under your pillow and they would take all of your worries away, so I tried to do that. I tried to leave all my anxiety to the worry people. Only my worries were too big for any little worried person to handle and my anxiety just started to get worse. 

The older I got the more I realized my anxiety started to control me, and the more anxious I got everyday. When I was a freshman in high school I had my first anxiety attack and I didn’t really know how to handle it. All I knew was that I felt like I was going to pass out and I really couldn’t breathe well. Once I realized how bad my anxiety was then I started to understand how that all stemmed from the depression I was experiencing daily. If I wasn’t experiencing crippling anxiety then I would be feeling down and depressed daily and sometimes these two would co exist and I would feel so anxious I couldn’t even go to school. When I was a freshman in high school my doctor thought it would be best if I went on an antidepressant. At first I was not happy about it because I worried people would judge me if they found out, so I kept it a secret. Unfortunately the meds I was put on as a freshmen did not help me at all and so I kept going through trying different medications. This went on until my senior year but by the time I was in my senior year of high school the new medication I was on was making me sick, it just took a while for us to figure that out. 

Then I tried another one and another one until I was a senior in college when I finally found the right medication for me. I realized I didn’t need to be ashamed of what I was going through and I also realized being on an antidepressant isn't anything I needed to be embarrassed about. Even to this day I am still on medication and I can honestly say it helps me so much. Every person is different and it's up to you and your doctor but mine has helped regulate my serration in my brain and has helped tremendously regulate my anxiety. 

Regardless if you need an antidepressant or not it has no reflection on who you are as a person. The people that matter most in life, the people that love and support you will never judge you for doing what's best for you.

-Carolyn