Personal Narrative: My Anxiety

It’s the feeling of acid in your stomach, the kind that doesn’t belong there, the kind that eats away at everything. It’s the feeling of constant distraction, the feeling that tells your body to be still although your heart is running a marathon. It’s the feeling as though you’ve lost all control, a prisoner, held captive by your own mind, constantly scrutinizing every word you say, and every move you make. This is the feeling of anxiety, something I’ve dealt with my entire life.

I would wake up for school and feel absolutely awful. Although I knew I was not sick, I would try to play it off as tho it were a cold, or maybe the stomach flu, anything that would prevent me from going school that day. This feeling however occurred everyday, and

At one point in my life my anxiety was a monster that controlled me, and a battle that I honestly believed that I had already lost. It began with the “crawlies on my skin,” feeling I would get as child. These random fits would occur anytime I was brought into an uncomfortable situation. My skin would tingle as though my body was being invaded by thousands of microscopic bugs. My body would tense, and while curled up on the ground, and I’d cry until I started to hyperventilate. Being a small child at the time my parents often discarded these episodes as a typical childhood phase, something they believed I’d grow out of. I did eventually grow out of the “creepy crawly” phase however the feeling I had inside grew with me. All throughout my childhood I would get extremely anxious any time I was placed in a social situation. I rarely spoke unless I was called upon by a teacher, and I would slouch down into my desk chair, is if it were to hide me from the prying eyes of my classmates who I just knew were all staring at me. My hands would sweat, and my stomach would feel sick, as a surge of energy shoot throughout my entire body. Nervously I would start tapping my feet beneath my desk, Until my mind told me to stop, scolding me for how ridiculous I

Sitting in the tiny little room with the big red chair, I felt isolated from the world around me, as if no one knew where I was and no-one cared. At first it seemed like a very strange place, but those weekly sessions became my new “shield” against my anxiety. I had found a place where I was comfortable, and had met someone I could confide in. It was sitting in the big red chair that I learned that I was in control and that my anxiety did not define me. It was where I decided that I no longer wanted to be that very shy, and very anxious