Anxiety... by Kloe Beck

Inside the Anxious Mind...

I wake up around 2:34 am, my heart is racing. I don’t know why.

Is something wrong?

Why did I randomly wake up?

Something must be wrong. . . it’s racing faster now.  

Should I call someone?

Am I going to be okay?

Alright, I just need to breathe.  

I should distract myself. Oh no, it’s getting worse. I need to get up and walk around, that will help. Maybe water?
It feels like my heart is going to explode. I’ll just lay back down and turn on some music. Now it’s 3:00 am, I should call my parents. . . no, it's too early, I don’t want to wake them. I slowly start to drift off. When I wake up later that morning I feel okay again. Why did I freak out earlier? I feel fine now. I think I’m okay.

About two to three times a month I experience these kinds of nights. They can last from ten minutes to three hours. Sometimes I just get through it by myself, and other nights I have to get help from my parents. Every time I wake up in one of these panics, it is still nerve-racking and scary each time.  

It can be hard to understand anxiety if you don’t have it. Anxiousness is an emotion everyone feels at one point in their life. It can seem irrational and overused to those who don’t have an anxiety disorder. As though just saying you’re anxious is an excuse to get out of something. I’m definitely tired of people misusing certain terms and using the phrase, “Oh, I’m just really anxious”, as an excuse. Depending on whether your anxiety is situational or because of a chemical imbalance, it can be an illness that people deal with for their whole life.  

I’m one of them.  

I’ve come to terms with it for the most part. I understand that a little inconvenience will probably trigger a much bigger inconvenience inside my mind.  

Luckily for me, I have the help of really supportive parents who have trained me on how to cope with my anxiety, until it went beyond their understanding; but still found me professional help to further learn how to manage it. Every few months I have to visit a therapist just to be put on the right track. Overall, I’m good at managing my anxiety and making sure it doesn’t stop me from the tasks of life. Though every once in a while, when I become overwhelmed, the anxiousness and panic attacks feel like the first time.

A typical school day for me goes like this; I walk into my first class feeling pretty good about everything. I’m not nervous and I have a good morning. As I sit in my class my mind starts to wander. . . Whoa, my head kind of hurts- it’s not a big deal- try to focus.

What if something happens to me?

Would someone help me or would no one notice?

Why does that kid keep looking at me, I'm not doing anything weird, am I?

Oh no, if this teacher calls on me, I won’t be able to answer. My arms feel different. . . are they going numb?

The bell rings and when I get up to walk, I feel a little better. The next class starts and the cycle resets itself. This happens until I’m back home.

To anyone who doesn’t experience an anxiety disorder, these questions and feelings may seem crazy, but to those who do understand, it makes complete sense. Ultimately where my anxiety stems from, is the fear that I won’t get to live my life to the fullest. That I’ll die before I get to experience things like traveling, getting married, having a family. I’m so caught up in worrying I won’t get that, that I’m missing some opportunities to be able to work towards those things. I’m scared I won’t be able to brave college alone or live by myself in general. This causes me to put myself through twice the agony. I once heard something that went along the lines of this, “Anxiety is like constantly hearing the Jaws theme song, with the suspense constantly building up, but never actually seeing the shark. ”

“So what if you do die young?”

My therapist has said this to me on many occasions.

“Imagine you do die. Then what? What’s so bad about that?”.

Shocked, I try to come up with an answer but it’s honestly too blunt of a question for me to even process.

“Ummm I don’t know, I won’t be able to do all the things I’ve always wanted to do!”

I try desperately to get my point across.

“But don’t you believe in life after death?”

He got me. I do believe that. Now what?

“Well, yeah. . . ” I say hesitantly

“What you have to do is look at your fear right in the face and say, ‘okay what if this does happen to me, what am I going to do about it?’ That’ll be the quickest thing you can do to pull yourself back to reality” He says with a smirk.  

Wow.

This man just single-handedly cured my anxiety. Oh, wait. No, he didn’t, because facing those things head-on scares me even more than the actual fear.  

Despite my hesitance, I tried this (which seems to be an insane) tactic. You will never believe me when I say it worked. Once I became okay with whatever fear I had at the time, it had no power over me, to occupy my mind or keep me constantly worried.

I’ve thought about that a lot. Whenever I start to hear the dreaded Jaws theme song, I have literally never seen the actual shark. I’ve had about six bad panic attacks in my life and countless anxiety attacks. Each time I overcome the feared problem, I always come out on the other side knowing more about my brain. I learn how to train myself better in the ways that I think and the way I handle hard situations. Just like what my therapist told me about facing the anxiety head-on, once I tried it, it benefited me and has been a learning experience ever since. Mental illness can make a person feel trapped because it’s their brain that is causing so much distress. It can make someone feel hopeless and scared. I’m here to say that it’s not impossible to manage. It’s not impossible to conquer. It may be something you have to deal with frequently and perhaps for the rest of your life but there is hope!

The good news is that it doesn’t have to rule or control your life. I am a walking breathing example of the fact that it can be managed and it can be overcome every single time.

 Kloe wrote this narrative for her English class last month.

For more posts about Kloe's anxiety click HERE.