My Anxiety Story: How I Began to Recognize I have Anxiety

I’ve mentioned a few times here that I suffer from anxiety. Back in May, during Mental Health Awareness Month, I shared a little more about my struggle on Instagram. Every since that post I’ve wanted to share more, so I’m getting personal today! My hopes in this is to not only get a little deeper but to also connect to more people. I think it also helps other to see how I began to recognize I have anxiety.

How I Recognize I Have Anxiety

Today, I want to share the beginning of my anxiety and how it started to shape my life. In the future I want to share more on my journey with it and eventually get into how I cope with it and the steps I’ve taken in my life. Everyone’s anxiety and feels of anxiety are very different. I don’t expect anyone else to have the exact same struggles that I have but maybe you can see a connection in parts of my story.

Although I didn’t always recognize I have anxiety, looking back I realized I’ve had feelings of anxiety for as long as I can remember. As I was growing up I would stress at new changes. I loved school but I would worry about failing, not having friends or not keeping up with my homework. I could find a hundred things to worry about and it would keep me on edge and affect my daily life. My feelings went beyond the typical stress and when I was a teenager it started to become much more intense. On my bad days, the typical social stresses of teenage daily life could cause me to have a complete meltdown.

Many times my anxiety wasn’t always triggered by something that was happening in my life but by something that could happen. My mind is constantly creating a ton of different scenarios of how things could turn out and what could happen. I would worry and fixate on the “what if’s” in life. Once I had these ideas, I couldn’t get rid of them. I had racing thoughts, feelings of dread and a lot of fear. I would even worry about how much I was worrying! This is when my anxiety changed from situational to more of a constant in my life. Many days I would have this “keyed up” feeling all day.

Physical Signs

Like many, my anxiety shows itself in physical symptoms too. It typically starts with a heaviness in my chest that can move throughout my body. When it is really bad, my heart can race and I can feel short of breath. In High School I had my first panic attack which I can only describe as the physical symptoms of a mini heart attack with a feeling of a complete loss of control. Obviously a panic attack can be very scary, especially if you don’t know what it is. When I had my first one, my mom was with me and I was lucky that she knew what was happening and could calm me down. Then the worry of having another one added to my anxiety, which created a vicious cycle in my daily life.

Obviously the changes that come with going to college can cause stress and some feelings anxiety for anybody. While exciting, all the “new” in the daily life of a college freshman can be a bit overwhelming. I loved my new life and being at OU was so much fun but of course it added many challenges for me. Making new friends, managing school and trying to have a social life pretty much consumed me. College life is also conducive to the bad habits of unhealthy eating and not much sleep.  I had primed myself for more anxiety and panic attacks. Anxiety can cause some other side effects when it’s really bad, like feelings of anxiety in social situations

How I Functioned

What some people don’t quite understand about anxiety is how people live with it. While I had a high level of anxiety, I could still go about my daily life, study, have fun and kind of hide the struggles and physical symptoms I had. Not that this is healthy, but I learned to separate the different “boxes” of my life and shut off what I wasn’t focused on in the moment. I would put difficult emotions or what I was dealing with in these boxes and not deal with them. This doesn’t mean the anxiety wasn’t there, it was more that I was ignoring anxious feelings and not working thru it. And in the long run this increased my anxiety. 

Because I was hiding most of my feelings and worries from myself, I was also keeping them from my family members and friends. I am lucky to have incredible people in my life but I am naturally someone that doesn’t easily share things. So never did I even think that I should be sharing that I feel anxious with anyone. I didn’t see how sharing could help me, so why would I burden those I loved with this?

People in my life could probably see that I was stressed but I think I did a pretty good job at hiding the level at which I was struggling. Having some anxiety herself, my mom could recognize that I did too. She was the only one that I felt even slightly comfortable in being open with my struggle. Her and I always had a close relationship and talked daily so I would give her some details about my anxiety level. I could share how it was affecting me and what other physical symptoms I had beyond my feelings. But most of the time this only happened when she asked about it several times or when it was so high I was about to burst. 

I really thought my level of anxiety and the constant heavy feeling I had was normal. And honestly it had basically become my new normal. When you have this same consistent feeling most days, it is hard to remember a time without it. Because I didn’t really think I could help this feeling, I wasn’t doing any work to make it better. I also thought that since I was doing well in school and making friends at college that I must be ok. And since I wasn’t sharing with really anyone, no one could tell me that I shouldn’t have to live with the intense feelings of anxiety I had.

One of the biggest physical symptoms I struggle with is difficulty sleeping. I could lay in bed for hours and not fall asleep, even though I was exhausted. Then on nights when I could fall asleep quickly, I would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back asleep. And what is maybe the worst part of this is ack of sleep is really hard on your body and can cause even more anxious feelings.

One of thand not fall asleep, even though I was exhausted. Then on nights when I could fall asleep, I would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back asleep. Lack of sleep also can make anxiety worse. 

Looking Back

Only in hindsight did I realize I was boxing up my feelings and not dealing with them. It was a subconscious way my mind taught me to cope so that I could live my daily life. I still had plenty of happiness in my life so I didn’t see the problem in what I was doing. Not until I started therapy in my mid 20’s would I learn how to break this habit. I learned that dealing with my anxiety was the only way that I could actually alleviate it.

Like I stated before, this is the just the beginning of my struggle. For me, anxiety will be a lifelong battle and I am thankful that I have the opportunity and platform to share with you. Later this month, I’ll be sharing the next part of my story and how 2 major life events affected it.  

After I finally recognize I have anxiety I needed to learn how to help it. I’ve shared here some of the tips I use when I’m having especially hard days.

There are many treatment options to help with anxiety. I would advise that you consult a health professional and see what options are best for you. Whatever you do, take care of yourself and things will get better. Your symptoms of anxiety will get lower and be something easier to deal with.

The post was originally posted in September of 2020 and has been updated.