The Experience Of A Service Cat

When I was little, I was very shy around new people. I usually only showed who I actually was around my family. I didn’t have a friend who I could be myself around, they were usually just friends who I would play with at recess. That was until everything changed, and I moved across the town of Derby.

As I got older, the feelings of anxiety grew more intense until everything seemed to come crashing down all at once. Eventually, I decided that I had had enough of constantly feeling suffocated from my anxiety. I began to do lots of research and would do projects on anything and everything involving mental health. Remembering how awful I felt everyday, I decided that I would do everything I could to help others with their mental health. I would constantly check in with my friends to make sure that they were okay and that they were taking care of themselves. I became a more caring and sympathetic person from something that had total control over my life. I do not think I would be the person I am today if I had not dealt with those feelings of anxiety and

Social anxiety is something I have always had although I did not always know what it was. I thought it was only something that those living under a rock and had never seen people had. I now know that anyone can have it. When I was a little kid, people would tell me what beautiful features I have and I would be so shy and self-conscious that I would hide behind my parents. My parents thought I was just shy but that was only part of it. I have failed many times and wasted many opportunities to expose myself to my anxiety and maybe even overcome it. Although I have always had social anxiety it only escalates the older I get. There was a time where I did not want to face my fears. I was told by not only my mom but many others that I would become agoraphobic. I never tried to get better. Ignoring “the monster” as I call

This is my life everyday, there is no stop or pause button. Anxiety is a battle with myself to try and find the sanity in this parallel world I now live in. Everything from going to lunch, going out with friends, walking in the hall, and talking to adults are all daily tasks that provoke this voice. However the worst part is when no one believes you. I knew something was wrong, yet I was put down and told I was just anxious. I didn’t even know what I was feeling, and now I was alone. The people I loved the most brushed it past like it was nothing, leaving me confused and afraid.

I have always been sort of a shy kid; I kept to myself and did not interact with other people if I did not have to.

I was not confident in my actions, but I was able to disregard what others said at the expense of closer ties with my friends. By creating this persona I created a shell for myself. One that nurtured my shyness to unfamiliar experiences and shielded me from saying a word. When I began high school, I told myself that I could start fresh and be a new person. Although, even as a junior, I only managed to succeed in disposing of the depressing, serious attitude. I still do not talk much, but I am open to new experiences and can accept some form of humiliation or

My anxiety still comes to consume me at times, but not as much as before. I still dread having to talk to strangers, I hate talking in front of groups, and to this day I'm horrible at small talk. But I can get out of bed and talk to people at work and answer the door for a delivery. I wouldn’t say that I’m brave or strong, but I can survive and that's all that

Everyone feels anxiety as some point in their life time. However, I cannot remember a moment that I didn’t have anxiety of some sort. As well as me, my dad and Aunt also both had suffered and continue to this day to have anxiety; however they didn’t let it take control of them. For me, I started to let the anxiety rule my life, it was taking me over. I found myself in the passenger seat of my mom’s car crying, shaking, and pleading my mom to not make me go into a writing camp I was taking. That was the end of the line for me, I had to get help. I needed to control the anxiety, so I started to go to therapy. There I learned a lot about anxiety and what it really is.

I wanted to learn more about Anxiety Disorders, since I myself have anxiety. These disorders are where you have persistent feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that don’t seem to go away on their own. There are physical symptoms of anxiety such as “apprehension, uneasiness, or dread; often accompanied by physical sensations similar to those of fear, perspiration, tightness of the chest, difficulty breathing/breathlessness, dry mouth, and headache.” Not everyone experience the same symptoms, but these are the most common ones. The common anxiety disorders are PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), Social Phobia, Agoraphobia, and Social Anxiety. Anxiety Disorders are the

When I saw the school psychologist he recommended biofeedback and a support group that he led at night. Biofeedback worked wonders and I still use some of the breathing strategies today. I declined the support group, I hated the though of telling other people I had anxiety because I was ashamed, and annoyed that I had these feelings for no reason. I hid it from everyone, because I thought it made me a weak person. I think if I would have went to those groups I would have learned that it is not something to be ashamed of, and that other people struggle with the same things. The support group at Marshall is a great step for helping students though a very difficult time, and helping them understand more about the

But when I was looked at by the school and my regular doctor they were unable to diagnose me correctly because as it is point out in an article by Susan H. Spence “two of the most commonly used self-report measures of child anxiety are both junior versions of their adult counterparts” (Spence 1998). Which was true even when I was given the test in the early 2000’s. A lot of the questions that I remember were things I couldn’t really place in my life. So though I scored rather high I was still not told that I may actually have an anxiety disorder. Instead they contributed it to a possible case of ADHD. So most of my issues as a child were put to that and I started going through some

I have dealt with anxiety my entire life. The anxiety became especially intense during my freshman year of high school. It began to severely interfere with my schooling, to the point where I could not even attend school. I many attempts to continue to attend school, but these attempts would often end with me having a severe panic attack. This constant failure to attend school sent me into a bout of depression. All of these factors led to the decision for me to be put into home hospital, where I would do all my schoolwork at home, and work with a teacher who came to my house for an hour each day. This would allow me to focus on receiving professional help with my anxiety. I met with a therapist

After a while, I was fed up with my anxiety. Having around twenty panic attacks a day puts a lot on the human body and the way it functions. I did not feeling human anymore. I talked

When I first entered high school, I struggled with the anxieties that stemmed from situations and conceptions, which formed an undying lack of confidence. Understanding myself and questioning why anxiety was something I specifically would have to deal with was frustrating and isolating. Why am I dealing with this? Will I ever be “cured”? What did I do to deserve this? Instead of addressing this issue, I always hid from the real world. I make excuses to avoid facing the problem. This shouldn’t be happening to me. Shame ate away at me, so I suppressed the issue until I was fed up. Anxiety had lingered around my entire youth and robbed me of various experiences. As a young teen, I was missing out on social events, activities involving nights away from home, and even dinner dates, because the slightest trigger could take me to panic, causing self misery and distress. If I were to describe the version of myself that is truest me, she would have only been a fabricated character hidden behind this anxiety that revealed as my identity. Within time, I grasped and learned how to find comfort within the uncomfortable to regain myself.