'I suffer'.. really?

i rememebr as a kid and still, hearing my mother say 'i suffer from anxiety and depression.' SUFFER....

Ill never forget the first time i had my first anxiety attack, and then panic attacks later. whata horrible horrible feeling. not ust the physical feeling syou get in the moment, but the fear of having those feelings and consuming your life.

For a while, i allowed myself to suffer from my anxietya nd it held me back from doing quite a bit. unfortunately. i was pretty good at hiding my anxiety though of learning rituals to control my anxiety/panic if i was in public. i learned my triggers and AVOIDED them... by avoid, i mean, taking a cab home from school early to avoid taking the bus and risking having a panic attach adn people knowing, switching classes because of my anxiety when i started to date... i mean i could go on and on about how i 'controlled' this thing.

WELL things have changed over the years and instead of 'suffering' i refused to let that control me and what i do. i have 1 life, and so much i would want to do except i feared that anxiety and it being noticed by others.

To help myself, after highschool i started to really work on fixing this problem and facing my fears. in HS you would NOT get me to talk in front of the class.. oh no.. that was pretty much my number 1 fear and the thought of that made me panic. but i didnt want this to set me back...

to makea long story short... i startd small... volunteering was easier than being picked on in class, so i would volunteer to share my answers. at first it was aweful. id have a bottle of water... it ws cold, so i could use it to hold to distract myself from feeling hot and liek i was going to pass out... 'focus on the cold bottle and say what i have to say' ok.. tht went ok..

where i sat in class was important... i didnt want to see every face in the class, so the very back wasnt too good, adn the middle wasnt either, somewhere on the side... that was comfortable for me...

i cant possibly get into all the things i did, but you get the idea...

eventually, i did have to use medication to help me learn to deal with this. i was on medicine for a few months and used it as a tool, not something to stay on for the rest of my life and that worked really well!

then in 2005 i was in school again and pregnant, and then i had brody etc...

i made myself talk to people in my class, found a few decent people i could be friends with, made myself do presentations... it wasnt too hard becuase it was like i was talking in front of my friends. i discussed topics that were important to me, and educated myself well on the material...

then i had to take a communications class.. i HAD to do it for my MA program.. so i decided to get it out of the way... volunteered lol. this is where i got the most experience and really started to get even better. i cried the first speach i gave. mostly because it was a sad topic about deatha dn the first person i had to care for that died. im emotional and i could deal with my emotions ok, and if i did cry, it released more tention over just being scared to talk to people.. so i was ok with that. didnt think id actully cry until i got up there though... but i did... that connected me to the people in my class though.. much like when you first meet someone and you get into your first dissagreement witht hem or something... it brings you closer.. or when they tell yo something personal for the first time, you step into anothe rlevel in the friendship...

that is how i felt from that day on with those classmates. i heard some really detailed, personal info from them in their speaches also. at first, we could use the podium to hid behind, then we couldnt. i was ok with that as i got more comfotable. i started talking about other things important to me, i brought in my art to show them, and at the time, gardasil came out adn i had strong opinions about that, i was knowledgeable about it, so i felt very comfortable talking about that...

well since then my anxiety has been embraced and its no secret.. which is great!

i use my anxiety as a tool instead of saying i have this poor me... it is i have this and yeah its apart of me but it doesnt consume me.

we all have something literally noone is perfect thats great! lol.. i think as a teenager though it is more difficult to deal with just because the fear we have of others opinions of us once they know... they may think we are a freak or someting. i could care less today, but back then it was unspoken of! the older i get the more open people are to talk to me about their own problems.. people you wouldve thought in highschool who had it together, have problems too... go figure lol. so many people have anxiety of different levels, different triggers etc...

i havent had too many panic attacks since ive acknowledged this and shared it with people.. i dont make it the topic of choice when i first meet anyone lol, but eventually it comes up at some point... i usually have just anxiety and not panic attacks like i used to.

my anxiety has changed over the years where as before it was more social, now its more about my kids.. but its controlabe and im ok. like anything else we learn, it takes practice to become good at controlling it.

it is just anxiety, im not suffering, in pain, i have all my limbs, my health is good..etc.. im NOT suffereing!