The Struggle of Anxiety

One thing I have always struggled with is asking for help with my anxiety. The biggest reason I have trouble asking for help is because I have always told myself I need to be independent and need to take care of myself and problems. When I was younger, my father became an alcoholic and I had to mature very fast. I never wanted to tell my mom I was upset or show her I was worried about anything, so I would keep it in and bury it. 

As I got older I began to grow this notion that I need to take care of other people before I took care of me and my needs. For instance, when my grandmother got sick and was in and out of hospitals and rehab I began to experience a lot of anxiety and depression. My grandma was my rock and my world. She took care of me when I was sick, always had an open bed for me when I needed a safe place and her hugs made every one of my worries go away and fill the space with love. I told myself I was not allowed to talk about my feelings or be upset in front of my mom because I did not want to upset her more. My mind would always go to a place of “it’s her mom and only my grandma” and “she is hurting more than me and I need to be there for her.” I never realized how unhealthy and damaging this was to my mental health. Burying my feelings to take care of others only made my anxiety get worse and worse. 

Then Junior year rolled around and everything snowballed downhill for me. My grandfather became ill with cancer. My grandpa was a very strong man and put up a front, much like I tend to do. However, I could see right through and knew in my heart he was worried and scared. My mom became very depressed and anxious with the load on her shoulders of taking him to appointments, helping him sell his house, trying to find us a house that we could all move into and making sure all his affairs were taken care of. My anxiety began to rapidly increase and I still could not find it in my heart to ask for help. Again I was in the situation of, family comes first and mom’s feelings are more important to me than mine. After we moved in with my grandpa to help take care of him, he passed away shortly after and all of my feelings and emotions that I had bottled away for years broke open. My grades dropped, all I wanted to do was lay in bed and I had a constant feeling of emptiness and loss in my life. 

After years of training myself not to show my emotions, I finally broke. I could tell my parents were worried about me. I began to distance myself from them and it felt worse that I was hurting them than the pain of holding everything in so I let it go. I began to tell them how I was feeling. Although sometimes it felt like they did not understand when they would tell me, “you’ll feel better tomorrow” or “it’s just been a hard day, you’ll be ok”. Opening up did not make me feel any better, so again, I began to shut down. 

It came to a point where I could not deal with it on my own anymore so I began going to therapy. For a while it felt amazing to have someone that I could just sit and spill out everything on my mind without feeling guilty about feeling bad and having anxiety. She would tell me how to get through certain situations at home and in school. She made me realize that it is perfectly normal for me to have anxiety even if others around me were experiencing it too. I started to be honest with myself and realize that when I said I was fine, I really was not. My mental health became one of my biggest focuses and slowly, with a lot of work I got better at taking care of me. Going to therapy and being told that I was valid made it clear to me that I should not be afraid to ask for help when I need it. Yes, sometimes in certain situations I do still struggle with opening up and admitting that I need help, or that I do have anxiety. However, day by day I am getting better about being true to myself and those around me who truly do care about what I am feeling.

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