How Fear Got Me Over My Anxiety
I was nine years old. Stomach in knots, body shaking, mind reeling. I couldn’t eat without the food coming back up again. I couldn’t do my homework because, well, the fear was just so overwhelming. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t focus on anything else. All I knew was one, terrible thing:
I needed to leave the house.
The thought struck terror in all of my being, and made me so scared I felt as if the world was ending.
This might sound silly to some of you, but to others, it might sound unfortunately familiar. Social anxiety, or the fear of interacting with people, had gripped me so hard, it was nearly impossible to let go. My mom didn’t understand why a “fun” day at a friend’s house caused such a reaction in me, or why even a trip to the grocery store had me leaning over a toilet. And to be honest, I didn’t either. I knew I wanted to go out. But another part of me, the stronger of the two, was terrified.
Why couldn’t I be normal? I saw my friends going out and having sleepovers, or going to big social events, or going to a restaurant without getting nervous and feeling the need to throw up. Why was I so different? My hatred of my own state made me feel even less willing to venture out in public. The worst thing was I knew that I would turn out fine after an hour or two of getting used to it; but still, the thought of going out seemed unbearable.
I was afraid of people not liking me, afraid of acting clumsy and making myself look bad in front of others. I was afraid of anyone even looking at me and noticing me, for fear of them somehow seeing me in a negative light. I just wanted to curl up on the couch in my house and watch a Disney movie, and pretend that nothing else existed in this world except for myself, my family, and my overactive imagination.
Many sessions of therapy later, I began to open up a bit. Slowly, like a flower starting to bloom, I let down a bit of my guard and allowed myself to talk to strangers. I stopped throwing up before going to a friend’s house, although the knots in my stomach stubbornly remained. I began to feel like I could enjoy this kind of life, and enjoy making more friends that I had before.
As I grew older, I looked back on those times as my motivation to push through challenging situations despite my fear. Because the one thing worse than my fear of others was my fear of letting that feeling overtake me; my fear that the anxiety I experienced would take over and control my life. I wanted to experience things the way other people experienced them so incredibly badly that I reached a point where I learned to force myself into ones that I was terrified of. Nothing major: a chat with a classmate I didn’t know that well here, a raised hand and answer during class there. Eventually, I began to give speeches in front of small crowds of people, and the nausea and vomiting came back. Even after I had spoken in public numerous times, if it hadn’t been for my determination to beat my anxiety I would never have given another speech again in my life — and still wouldn’t.
It took baby steps. It took the help of those around me when my courage was faltering, and it took years and years of practice placing myself in anxiety-provoking situations to get me significantly over my fear. But once I reached the point in my life where I realized that I had learned to socially function “normally” about 6 years later, I felt a glowing sense of pride and accomplishment. I knew that my anxiety would still get to me at times, and I didn’t expect to ever be completely rid of the feeling. But I did know that I had come very far from where I once was, and it was the fear of allowing myself to be controlled by something that sucked the life out of me that drove me to shake it off as much as possible. Today I feel so blessed to have come so far, and if there is anything I want readers to hear from my story, it is this:
For people with chronic anxiety, the things that will most benefit us in life are the things that strike us with fear. *Not dangerous or fool-hardy things, mind you*, but healthy, life-enhancing things. Things that will ultimately give you the joy back that you deserve, which anxiety tries so hard to shove away. Once you set your mind to face the things that you fear most, I promise you that the result will be rewarding in the end. It all starts with baby steps. And if you try, really try, surrounding yourself with people who will help you and cheer you on, you may just find that the quality of life you are living will rise through the roof of anything you remotely experienced before.
