Ever heard of “butterflies in your stomach”? That is pretty similar to how anxiety feels, except my butterflies weren’t some pretty metaphor. My butterflies were like lead: heavy, sickening weights in my stomach. They felt like someone was playing pinball in my stomach nonstop. My “butterflies” decided to make their first appearance early in my sophomore year. I was assigned my first project in my chorus class, and the project’s goal was to work in groups to write a parody of a rap song on the subject of Halloween and perform the song in front of the class. Prior to our names being called, I felt confident. My group and I had worked on the song for almost a week and I had spent hours practicing my part. But as I stood in front of the class …show more content…
I was scared to speak in class; I was scared to even go to class. My participation in school became non-existent, and my grades in all of my classes suffered because of it. I distanced myself from everyone, and I became unable to make even casual conversation. People don’t talk about anxiety much, but one thing they really don’t talk about is this: anxiety can make you lose yourself. When I was a kid, I had aspired to be just like Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books; I raised my hand all the time, I tried to get the best grades, and I was known for being the academic one in my family. While I had been shy, I had loved getting to know new people. I lost all of that and all of who I was because of my anxiety, and it took recovering to find …show more content…
All my life, I had been so negative and close-minded; everything bad always happened to me and everyone else got all the good things I wanted. Now, I believe in the idea that what a person gives out is what they receive. All I gave out was negativity, so that was all I received for a very long time. When I became more positive towards myself and others, my anxiety began to improve. Firstly, I removed myself from toxic relationships, because they did nothing but hurt me. I found people that inspired me, like Essena O’Neill, a youtuber who discussed a lot of the same things I’d been battling in my head. For a long time, anxiety got me stuck in my own head. But getting out of that unhappy bubble, and beginning to watch movies and read books again helped me out of that slump. I rediscovered my love of video games, my hobby of writing stories, and my desire to explore everything. What helped me the most in recovering from anxiety was joining Key