Accepting and Growing From Anxiety
By Emily
Anxiety is something that has always had control over my life. I remember being 9 years old, making my first trip to therapy and absolutely despising it. I couldn’t understand why my parents were making me go. In my mind all my problems could be solved by simply staying at home. As a child, it was hard for me to understand and cope with my anxiety. Since then it has been an over a decade long journey of self-discovery, therapy sessions, medications and self-acceptance.
I always have had a pessimistic outlook on life, so the coping techniques I learned didn’t resonate with me. I thought to myself, “How could rubbing a smooth rock fix anything?” To me, my anxiety wasn’t something I could distract myself from. It’s something I’ve had to grow from and accept about myself.
A pivotal moment for me was my senior year of high school. Death was a concept I was familiar with, having grown up in a family with lots of elderly relatives, I attended a lot of funerals. However, during my senior year of high school I lost two friends in unrelated incidents. An old classmate of mine that I grew up with died as a result of texting and driving while not wearing a seatbelt. My other friend was intentionally struck by a car after an altercation. I began to fear death and found myself unable to sleep at night. I thought that I could have done more. Maybe if I had spoken up about safety they wouldn’t have died. I then struggled with the knowledge that there was nothing I could have done to make a difference.
Mortality weighed heavy on my mind, and I spent my first two years of college afraid. I refused to put myself in a situation that could result badly. I found myself ridiculing my peers who would party, saying they had a death wish. I eventually pushed myself out of my comfort zone and began to travel abroad through my school for five months. During this time, I found myself in a situation where I constantly had to try new things. At first I was terrified. I found myself imaging every way things could go wrong. I was constantly planning escape routes, practicing CPR in my head and walking through self defense techniques.
As I grew more comfortable, I found myself feeling guilty. Why was I allowed to have this amazing experience? Why was I able to live my life when so many people’s lives were cut short? I began to fall into a depression, questioning why I was able to live. No one plans to die unexpectedly, so why hasn’t anything bad happened to me, and would it? I found life pointless.
However, the people I met while in college and studying abroad have changed me. Although I still find myself thinking pessimistically and cynically, I’m learning how to enjoy every moment in life for what it is. My friends have inspired me to work out and pursue hobbies that make me happy simply because they make me happy. While I still have bad days, I have more good ones knowing I have people to rely on and support me like I never have before. Although I fear losing them, I know that even my memories of them are precious and have made a difference in my life.
