A young preteen is in the car with her mom on the way to her regular gymnastics practice, and it takes everything inside of her to stop the tears from pouring out, get out of the car, and walk into the gym. With knots in her stomach so tight she thinks she might be sick, she pushes her way through the doors. You are better than this. A few weeks later she quits.
A high school sophomore on the JV basketball team clutches her knees to her chest as her mother enters the room and sees her daughter, sitting on her bed, tears running down her face. "Baby, what's wrong?" "My leg hurts momma," She says between caught breaths, "I can't go to practice today, I just can't. It hurts, and I hate running, and I'm not good enough." "Okay sweetie, it's okay, we'll go to the doctor today, okay?"
18 years old and weeks away from graduation, the President of her school FFA chapter sits in a chair at home, with her retiring address speech grasped tightly in her hands, crumpled. She rocks back and forth while making any attempt to catch her breath, sobbing, while her parents stand in the room watching helplessly.
A third year college student slides down the door, hitting the bathroom floor, head between her knees, crying uncontrollably, unable to breathe, while the man who just broke her heart sits in front of her, shakes his head and says, "Baby....please...stop...I had no idea you cared this much about me."
These four girls all have one thing in common.
They are all me.
They are all me, in each of the moments I distinctly remember that my anxiety won.
I am the happy girl. The girl who has it all together. Or at least that's what I make them think. I am constantly in a good mood because I don't see any reason to make other people feel bad just because I feel bad. So I slap on the smile. I do the song and dance. I push to be the best at whatever the task at hand is. I'm busy, and I thrive on it. I don't have time to stop because if I stop, it catches up to me. And by it, I mean my anxiety.
Usually I can control it, and I don't consider myself an unhappy person. The only things that give me away are the nubs I call my bitten fingernails, and a leg that shakes. Usually my anxiety doesn't interfere with my social life. But as long as I can remember it has been there.
My constant companion.
Anxiety is different from other mental illnesses because it can show itself in many different forms. My anxiety's favorite forms are waves of depression and melancholy, and a very defensive nature about touchy subjects. For as long as far back as I can see.
As an average high school basketball player, my need to be the best ate at me every single day. Before school, after school, and Saturday practices. Other girls were faster, stronger, better. I was so determined to prove myself worthy of being on the team that I played the entire pre-season on a really bad stress fracture in my tibia that the doctor said, "I shouldn't even be walking on without pain." Even typing that sentence makes me feel like I am making excuses, and I'm better than that. So, after going to the doctor and missing district play, I quit. For the first time in my life I accepted that I wasn't good enough, and became more involved in the National FFA Organization.
Which I excelled at. My desire to be the best guided me through the club with very little issue. I became a good speaker, learned how to make people like me, put my head down and piled on the work. Before long I was chapter President, and excelling at everything I tried. When I knew the end of my high school FFA career was approaching I made myself sick to my stomach day after day worrying about it. I had created a bubble where I was one of, if not the best at what I was doing in my chapter. I was popular in the ag circle, admired by underclassmen, appreciated by my mentors, and at home in my surroundings. Until I couldn't be anymore.
Until life happened, and I had to leave, and prove myself all over again.
Which I successfully did in about two years. For lack of a better phrase, I was making college my bitch. And then he came into the picture. He claimed I was everything he wanted--driven, independent, well dressed and well respected. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I fell in love, hopelessly devoted. And then in the blink of an eye it was crumbling in front of me. He left me in Nacogdoches to go visit his ex girlfriend's mom in the hospital, in the middle of our biggest fight. When I surprised him on Christmas day, he embraced me with open loving arms. Until discussion rolled around and he responded by telling me he loved me, he just didn't want to be with me.
So I broke down because I wasn't enough, but this time it wasn't just my athletic ability, which I could blame on genetics and mother nature.
It was just me. Vulnerable, honest, and broken.
And boy did it break me.
If you have never experienced a panic attack it is a difficult thing to describe. Both of mine have felt like I had bricks on my chest while I was crying, but the more I tried to catch my breath, the more the tears came out and the harder it was. My heart was racing and felt like it was in between my eyes. My mind wasn't just focused on being upset, or what caused the explosion, it was running 100 miles a minute while I hyperventilated, reliving every moment of anxiety in the last day, week, year....the time period changes. My vision got blurry and at several moments I remember thinking, and kind of wishing, I would just pass out.
And then the storm clouds dissipated. My heart rate slowed, my breathing regained normal rhythm, and all I wanted to do was sleep.
My entire life I have suffered from being a "perfectionist." I say suffered, but perfectionism hasn't caused me pain, anxiety has. Perfectionism has blessed me with good grades, a friendly and like-able nature, and a love of busy schedules and challenge. Anxiety on the other hand, has done me no favors.
It has made athletics something I began to dread in 4th grade after realizing I wouldn't be the best. It made me quit playing the cello after junior high because I was so afraid I wouldn't have been good enough in high school. I quit gymnastics because the thought of doing it competitively made me want to cry. It made me back out of performing a cello solo at a choir concert because I didn't want to fail in front of that many people.
It makes me avoid group workout classes, and turn down numerous offers to go jogging with friends because, what if I'm not as good as them? It has caused stomach knots, and skin conditions. Tears shed and burned bridges. But by far the most pain it has caused me have been in affairs of the heart.
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Anxiety takes all of those normal relationship fears and amplifies them. Combine that with an already insecure man and boy are you in for a tragic show.
Lying there broken on the bathroom floor while he stood over me was probably the third lowest point I have ever reached in my life. The second lowest was a couple weeks later when I began to cut my shoulder in the shower because it stopped me from crying. And the lowest point was after I took him back, because then I had lost myself entirely. I gave up time with friends, going out, arguments, and any ounce of confidence or dignity I had left. But it was okay, because he loved me. I was being who he said he wanted. All three of my life's lowest points have happened this year.
I wish I had known then, that anyone who made me feel that low, could never reciprocate the kind of love I wanted forever. The kind I deserve.
But we accept the love we think we deserve, right? And the second time around I wasn't over ll of the things I hated about myself.
Ever since my ex and I broke up for the first time I have been changed. I think I always will be. But this change, for now, is not the change that helped me grow. It tore me down. After dating him the second time? I was done for. As weeks passed by the strain of everyday was more and more noticeable.
But I am the happy girl.
I started avoiding going home because when I got home all I wanted was sleep. I would stay at the ag building or at friends houses looking for things to do, working on assignments until 7, 8, sometimes 9 pm. At the end of everyday I was exhausted from putting on the show that had become my life. At least 5 days a week, I went out. To eat, for drinks, to dance, to party, It didn't matter. As long as I didn't stop. I stopped eating, not to lose weight but because I didn't have an appetite. And the worst part was that I hated myself for not being able to correct whatever this problem was. But I didn't stop.
Constant Interaction = Constant Distraction
But I am the happy girl.
I came home for break and, with no distractions at my disposal for every hour of the day, the anxiety intensified. Reliving moments with my ex. Analyzing every word I said or action I made with the charmer I fell for after him. Things that happened in September keeping me awake at night. My stomach in knots and my attitude defensive. Obsessively checking Facebook to see if either of them have posted anything new.
My mind is still racing, and I don't know how to make it stop. Which is why I need help.
Before this a handful of people knew about the cutting. God that sounds embarrassing doesn't it? Cutting...like a teen who just bought her first gauge earrings from hot topic. I only did it for a brief period of time. A few weeks max. But those cuts ran deep. I never dealt with the demons I was left with after the night in that bathroom.
I still can't sleep and a lot of times still don't want to eat. However, the first step to correcting a problem is admitting you have one. And although I have always known about my anxiety, I have never reached out for help with it.
Because I am the happy girl.
I have felt like I was on the verge of panic attack for the last five days. A few nights ago I made the decision to see a counselor when I go back to school.
I am surrounded by people who love and support me. It's okay to be mad or depressed. It's not okay to repress and ignore it to the point of panic attack just because I am the happy girl.
So to every happy girl out there who expresses her deepest fears and feelings through thoughtful Pinterest quotes, I understand. From one happy girl to another I know what you are going through and I want you to know that it is okay to not be happy.
Find your people. The ones you don't have to try for. The only people I can go numb around are those closest to me. The people I don't have to be "on" for. Find those people in your life and hang on to them tightly, for they are an escape. An escape from your own mind. An escape from your constant companion.
It does not define you. It will not break you.
You are not broken.
You will be happy.
You will be loved.
You are enough.
-L
