Every Morning I Look Myself In The Mirror, And I Ask Myself,

I later found out that this disorder is a lot more common than expected. After lots of research, I’ve found that my body let’s off an abnormal amount of adrenaline during stress and causes my body to go into “fight or flight” response when it does not need to. When I found this out I was incredibly relieved. Way more people suffer from general anxiety disorder than I could have ever imagined. I want to normalize mental illnesses because they are, indeed, normal. I wasn’t educated enough before and stereotyped myself when I should not have. General anxiety disorder is apart of who I am, but it isn’t all of who I

To better understand your condition, can you kindly provide brief descriptions of the various symptoms that you are experiencing?

Anxiety is a mental disorder in which a person experiences extreme worry or fear. This feeling of fear causes the majority of people to have trembling in their hands or to exaggerate the event that is coming their way. Most people also experience racing thoughts or thoughts that are unwanted. “For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time.” (Anxiety Disorders, National Institute of Mental Health). As you can tell, fear and worry is the source to all of these signs and symptoms. When you experience anxiety, you are not able to control your thoughts and the feeling would probably intensify. In worse cases, it is possible for the person to experience a panic attack. “...recurrent unexpected panic attacks, which are sudden periods of intense fear that may include palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate…” (Anxiety

A few years ago I had my first panic attack in school; my body shook uncontrollably, my chest seemed to be caving in with each breath, and I could hear each tear hit my jeans. I had never before experienced an attack

I continued to give up on activities I loved simply because I was afraid to fail. I gave up on dance and music before I hit high school. My anxiety got worse as I navigated middle school and the complications of moving two times in one year. At one point, I refused to go to school because I felt so insecure in my own skin. After months of battling my internal voices, I began seeing a therapist.

As a Richland Collegiate High School student, I am always attacked by stressors in my academic life. The stress provoked by school-related objects often bled into my home and social life. It created an unhealthy environment where I felt weighed down by the stress. Due to the stress, I often lost my appetite and started sleeping less. My mother worried that I was depressed or that I was developing an eating disorder, but I just did not know how to pick myself up and just get things done. I lacked motivation, self-control, and a healthy balance of work and relaxation. Throughout the course, I have been picking up on some of the strategies I can use to help alleviate my stress and subsequently improve other aspects of my life.

Have you ever felt like you wanted to achieve something so bad but just don’t have enough energy or motivation to do it? Like eating healthy, running a marathon, become president of the United States. I felt the same but mine was losing weight. All through my childhood and adolescence I have been a heavy kid. I was involved in many recreational activities and sports such as baseball, soccer, and basketball. With all this exercise I felt like I would be able to lose this weight but I just kept gaining more weight. Later during my heavy weight period I started developing sad thoughts and for the most part anxiety. I felt like no one liked me and that no one knew who I was.

Becoming of older age, I began to understand that it’s perfectly fine to be imperfect. The extraordinary person I believed I would never become started off by committing faults and mistakes. Despite the fact that I was treated differently it pushed me toward understanding that I am enough. No matter what obstacles or battles I come across I’ve convinced myself to ignore the negativity surrounding me and converting it to positivity.

Everyday I would come home upset and crying; confused about everything, thinking to myself what did I do to deserve this and wanting all of this to go away, but I would put myself in this mindset that I am strong and I can bare with it but things just got worse and worse. One day my mom decided to get a blood test done on me to see if it’s not because of the excessive eating that there must be something wrong internally and when the results came back all of my questions and my parents questions were answered. My blood test showed that my hormone levels were out of the place, my insulin levels were very high, I was in the pre-diabetic stage, and was told I have Hypothyroidism. My life there changed; I was watched what I was taking in, I had to make sure I was taking my medications on time, the symptoms grew worse; I would feel tired everyday for no reason, my hair got thinner, my feminine cycles were abnormal, and sudden mood

Because of these symptoms, my doctor suggested that I don’t go to class or do any physical activity until my symptoms clear. I did any assignments that I was able to during the last few weeks of classes though I needed to stagger them and do them infrequently to avoid making my symptoms worsen again. I was approved to return to physical activity during the last week of the academic calendar.

My anxiety caused my stomach to ache every day. The nerves took over my body, causing me to become jittery and have panic attacks many times a day. I

My first memory of experiencing anxiety was during my parents’ divorce. I was afraid of what would happen to my sisters and me. In addition to my parents’ divorce, I also started to feel anxious in school because I did not fit in with my peers due to having Asperger’s syndrome and feared that they would bully me. In fact, I ended up experiencing bullying all throughout elementary school, and it only stopped once I started high school. My major source of anxiety and stress throughout my childhood and

Although in the time, I didn’t know if the discord happening within my body. Two weeks after I lost my grandfather, I was dying as well. My blood count was a staggeringly low 5.27, the lowest healthy amount is 12.0. I was rushed to the hospital for a transfusion the day my doctor got the results back. My new doctors at the University of Kentucky Hospital were diligent with my care, yet there were many blanks. They found no sign of Lupus, Leukemia, or other diseases to cause blood deficiencies. Until the term finally came up. GPA. I didn’t know what it was, nor were the doctors sure yet. It only took a day for my team of over ten doctors to figure it out. Constant calls to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and they were finally treating me. High doses of prednisone and iron supplements were what I had to look forward to every morning after coming home. A girl that weighed one-hundred and twenty pounds went to a two-hundred-pound girl in a matter of a few months. My auto-immune disease hasn’t changed my whole life. But it changed my outlook on how precious life is. I found out later that, if I hadn’t been admitted when I was, I would’ve been dead within the week. It was Thursday when I was admitted. How short and precious our lives

Almost seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Severe anxiety. With that, the panic attacks started. They started slowly, about once every 2 months. In short time, once or twice a week I would be sent into a spiral of intense panic. Little, everyday trepidations terrified me. I shall never forget when my doctor looked me in the eyes and said the four dreadful words that have completely changed my life, "You have Crippling Anxiety". Even saying those words leave a dreadful taste in my mouth.

Driving to Long Beach with my family, I watched the trees and cars zoom past. Suddenly, as my heart began to pound throughout my whole body, I felt my chest and throat tighten and my muscles stiffen. My brain shut out my surroundings and focused on the panic setting in. Sweat dripped down my palms as I gripped the car handle so tightly my knuckles turned white. Disorientation followed and I was consumed by fear, transported to an empty, helpless space. I had passed the thin line that separated composure and panic. By the time we got to the apartment, I was relieved to have a change of surroundings as I stumbled out of the car. I was shaking when I got out and rushed inside the apartment to calm myself down.This was one of many more panic attacks