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EMPOWERED WOMAN

Anxiety is different for everyone. Mind.org defines it as "a word we use to describe feelings of unease, worry and fear."

I've had anxiety since I was about eight years old. There's not an exact moment I can pin point and say "this is when it started", I think it was a gradual thing. I was an anxious child and a lot of people in my family have struggled with similar things so it's not exactly surprising that I go through it, too.

One of my earliest memories of anxiety was in a maths class when I was about eight or nine, we had a cover teacher and she used to terrify me so much. I remember as soon as I knew it was her who would be teaching us I began to get anxious - my stomach tied itself into the tightest of knots, my mouth dried up, I can remember feeling like I couldn't breathe. About half way into the class I had worked myself up so much that I made myself physically sick. I didn't know this was anxiety at the time. It was after this (or a similar sort of thing) kept happening whenever I was feeling unsure that we realised I wasn't just 'worrying' - there was something more to it.

I used to know specific things that would trigger my panic attacks - long car journeys, going out to dinner, school trips and going to friend's houses. As I got older, this changed and I started to get anxious about literally anything. It became more and more unpredictable.

Something that had a huge effect on my anxiety was bullying. I was bullied for around four years during secondary school, but it got really bad when I was about fourteen/fifteen years old. I didn't have friends, and I don't mean that in the 'lol I have no friends' kind of way, I mean it in the sense that I sat by myself at lunch, people didn't talk to me in class unless it was to tell me to shut up because I'm irrelevant. I was bullied by two girls in particular, one of whom used to be my best friend (which is probably the worst part about it for me). Every English lesson, one of the girls used to ask me why I was so annoying, before requesting that I should kill myself. Nobody should ever be told this by anyone and I am still disgusted that she used to say this so casually. She'd hated me since we were about eleven, so I was numb to her words at this point, but the fact that someone disliked me enough to say that still stung. The other girl, the one who used to be my best friend, was the most popular girl in my school. She was the kind of girl whose hair was always perfectly tousled like she was about to walk the VS fashion show, and her eyeliner was always winged to perfection. After she shot to senior school stardom, she decided that I wasn't worth her time anymore. I wasn't good enough for her anymore; she'd found 'better' people. Being dropped by someone I thought would always have my back was one of the worst feelings. I felt so lost and pathetic - being bullied by someone who doesn't really know you anyway is one thing, but for someone who I thought cared about me to turn on me as soon as she saw something better hurt me like I'd never hurt before.  Long story short, I became a joke. She laughed at me, not with me. The isolation I felt after five years at that school left me feeling weak, damaged and extremely self conscious. I didn't feel good enough for anyone or anything. This made my anxiety so much worse, particularly in social situations.

I moved schools last year, and I made the best friends in the world and I feel so fortunate to have them. After my previous experience I genuinely forgot how it feels to have friends (as stupid as it sounds). For the first time in forever, I had someone to sit with at lunch. It might sound small but for me, it was the biggest deal. But even though I was so much happier, and I had all my friends, and I was in a place where I didn't feel judged and I was comfortable, my anxiety was still getting the better of me. In fact, I'd say it got worse. I still don't know why. I was having panic attacks before school and during school, and I was extremely conscious of how this looked to my new friends. I was really fearful that they'd judge me for it (even though they didn't). In the past, people said to me that I was 'attention seeking', and I was scared out of my mind that they would think this too. Years and years of not having friends had led me to trick myself into believing that all my new friends didn't really like me at all, and I was annoying them, they didn't really want me around. I overthought everything. I really don't know why I did this to myself, I don't think I realised I was doing this at the time. My anxiety was getting the better of me, and I began to have panic attacks way more frequently and I found it harder and harder to get them under control.

Over the summer I went to a drama school. This was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life in terms of my anxiety, and the thing I am most proud of. The two weeks I spent there taught me the most important lesson I have learnt: I am enough. For me, the thing I was most concerned about was my anxiety destroying my friendships. I was unintentionally pushing my friends away because I was so insecure in myself, and my anxiety was encouraging this. Being surrounded by people who accepted me immediately and were including me and wanted me around made me realise that people don't always hate me. It sounds stupid to say out loud, but after so many years of isolation it's easy to believe that there's something wrong with you, and that's how I felt. My perspective on myself has changed, and it has made an incredible impact on other aspects of my life.

I still deal with anxiety and panic attacks. In fact, the last time I had a panic attack was this morning, but this time I had a friend that helped me through it, and I wasn't ashamed to be feeling the way I was feeling, because I understand now that I am not my anxiety. Anxiety is something that comes and goes, and though it is an unwelcome visitor, I am learning how to deal with it. For a good few years, my solution has been to hide myself away in my bed with Gavin & Stacey playing in the background. Now I want to see what will happen if I push through and do the things my anxiety makes me think I can't.