Growing up, the only memories I have are of fear. Gut wrenching, stomach turning, anxiety. There is no memory that is not tainted with anxiety’s grasp. I have never not had anxiety. Even as a baby, my mother recounted the night terrors my brother and I would experience each night as a young baby. I have never known anything but the fear, the doubt, the intrusive thoughts, and the desire to please. It is ingrained in me so deeply to a genetic level, that I can never rid myself of it. However I can change it, but first, let me tell you what got me to the place I’m in today.
My father has Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Reactive Attachment Disorder. As little children, my brother and I learned to tiptoe around him. We feared him and his moods. He emotionally abused us, and I am scarred to this day because of it. One time, my mom left for a two day trip with her friends and we were locked in our rooms for hours without food and water, because we were “bothering” him. My mom never left us again after that.
Adding to the fact that mental illness runs in my family, this start to life was a set up for failure. When my mother divorced my father soon after, she took my brother and I to another state when I was 7 years old. We both started new schools and a new life essentially. The only people we knew were my cousins living there. There began another problem.
Initially my cousins were great to be around, but as I grew older, the cousin my age began to bully me. I was mercilessly teased and demoralized for years, unable to stand up for myself, but wanting to. This was during the time that I was in late elementary school/middle school. My brother and I were having to visit our dad due to court guidelines. My anxiety was getting bad. It was so bad at this point that I threw up each night before going to bed, because I didn’t want to face the next day and was worried about being able to sleep.
I was able to hold on for about two more years until I graduated from eighth grade and my brother finished high school. As a family, we decided to move to a different city. Where we were had so many bad memories and we wanted to get away from my cousins. We moved that summer and I started high school. I was a complete mess. There was not a time that I can remember where I was not panicking. Panicking about remembering my locker combination, getting to class on time, getting good grades, etc. The anxiety got so bad that I went to an inpatient behavioral health unit. After my one week stay, I never went back to that school.
Anxiety now officially ruled my life. I had tipped the scale and there was no going back. I spent so much time those days just crying in my closet or laying on my bed praying to die. My schooling was transferred online version and I was so isolated because I could not handle going out. Well, if it could get any worse, I started to get very sick. Things doctors could not figure out. I went from hospital stay to hospital stay, getting test after test, with no answers. I had become chronically ill. You can only imagine what this did to my anxiety and depression.
As I now began to battle my physical health, I had to battle my mental health right alongside it. I went on to complete three more inpatient behavioral health stays, each worse than the last. My brother was killed in a car accident in the middle of all of this, pushing back all progress I had made in therapy. That completely crushed me as well as losing 3 dogs in the span of two years around the time of his death.
Where am I now? I am doing good. I have gone to therapy for years, have finally found a medicine cocktail that works for me, and am finding answers for my physical health. It took my sheer will to want to be better and the persistence of my psychiatrists to get to this point. I now choose to speak out about my experiences and to encourage others in the hope that no one would have to go through what I did. What have I learned? It takes time and a lot of it to get to the place where I am now, but it is completely possible. My anxiety is not gone. I still fight it on a daily basis, but now I actually know how to.