Growing up with Undiagnosed Anxiety

I replayed every single conversation I had in my head over and over again, analyzing it, trying to figure out if I said something wrong. Every time I hung out with my friends, I overanalyzed their every word, every action, every expression. I went home convinced they hated me.

I thought this was normal.

I read a scary story and then found myself terrified to be alone for weeks afterward. I was scared to leave my room, scared to be in the dark, scared to be in a room by myself with the door shut. Terrified that something might happen to me. I was terrified of death and thought that it was close. I would pray every night before I fell asleep that I wouldn’t die in my sleep.

I thought this was normal.

I was convinced other people could read my thoughts. I was scared to think about anything or anyone around me because I thought everyone secretly knew what I was thinking: that there was some secret everyone was in on but me.

I thought this was normal.

I always thought people were following me, watching me: that everyone in my life knew about every single thing I did and thought. It made it hard-nearly impossible- for me to do anything without internally freaking out because I could feel myself being judged and hated by every single person in my life.

I thought this was normal.

I put a piece of tape over my webcam. I turned my phone off and hid it under my bed at night in case people could watch me through it. The stream of constant, irrational thoughts only got worse as I got older. It was hard for me to function. Yet, I still thought this was normal: the paranoia and anxiety that took over my life. The obsessive thoughts. Even the panic attacks. Huddled in the corner of the bathroom at my high school, thinking I was going to die, that my heart was going to force its way out of my chest and explode.

Even after all this, I thought these kinds of thoughts and actions were normal.

That’s the thing about mental health. It’s in your head, and how are you supposed to know that the way you think isn’t just the way everyone else thinks? For a large portion of your life, inside your brain is all you know. I had no idea that there were people out there who didn’t overanalyze every little thing, people who weren’t paranoid that every thing that everyone was out to get them or that they could die at the drop of a hat.

It wasn’t until I had a psychogenic seizure that I fully recognized that I had a problem. I was 18 years old. This was something that could have been dealt with years before. I could have been treated for my anxiety so much earlier in my life, but by time I realized that I might need help, I was too scared to get it. I was too scared of being stigmatized or of being called “crazy,” “dramatic,” or “stupid”. Words I’d been called so many times over the years. So I kept it to myself until I came to an actual breaking point.

This is why it’s so important to teach people about mental health and to recognize the signs that something’s not right. If it’s hard for you to function, if your daily tasks are hard for you because of your thoughts, it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to talk to someone.

Treatment isn’t magical. My medications don’t make me feel perfect (thought I’m not even sure what this feels like). Therapy doesn’t solve all your problems. But it’s a start.

If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask for it. It’s okay to be scared. I was. I still am sometimes. But I will say this: my life has become significantly easier since I recognized that I had an anxiety disorder and since I started working to treat it. It’s part of who I am, but it doesn’t define me anymore. I am now able to recognize when I have an irrational thought, and I know how to take the steps to stop these thoughts from controlling my life.

This was hard for me to write and even harder for me to publish. But I’m doing this in the hopes that someone will come across this and find it relatable, so that they know they’re not alone.