Around March of 2020, I started to develop symptoms of anxiety and depression. I didn’t get diagnosed until this year, and I am still figuring out about my mental health. I haven’t figured out how to completely understand what’s wrong with me or the reasons for my panic attacks. 

Anxiety is different for everyone. For me it is constantly overthinking my actions, how I look, how I speak, walk, what I did in the past or recently, and what people have said to me. I get filled with overwhelming thoughts about myself or what others think of me, or if someone hates me because they didn’t text me back. Basically, I overthink things, and anything a person says or does can affect me deeply. 

I am constantly getting called emotional by everyone, especially my family. They basically have to walk on eggshells because I am “too emotional”. I honestly hate being emotional, and if I could turn my emotions off, which I cannot, I would. 

Having anxiety has kept me from doing the things that I love. For some odd reason, my anxiety is ten times worse than it was last year. I am pretty sure my music teacher thinks I am going to have a panic attack and cry every time we have to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I used to love singing and I still do, but it feels like I am being a complete attention seeker when I have panic attacks at games which is one hundred percent unenjoyable.

There are also physical symptoms I have to deal with almost on a daily basis. Almost every day I feel extremely nauseous with headaches. When I have my panic attacks, it feels like it’s really hot, and a heavy brick was put onto my chest making it hard to breathe with my heart pounding like it’s about to break out of my chest. 

I haven’t really found a good coping mechanism for my anxiety. I usually end up picking at my skin or pinching myself until I calm down, which is unhealthy by the way. I don’t know if this is healthy or unhealthy but a coping mechanism I am really good at doing is isolating myself until I can calm down and find something calming to do. Dealing with anxiety can be really hard because it feels like everything I do is wrong and I can never do anything right. Even when I try to think positively, I always end up overthinking it and crying all over again. 

There is still a lot to learn about myself and many many ways I can get better and improve on myself. Maybe one day I will be able to control my anxiety but for now, it is complicated