How I Learned To Deal With Having Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): a psychological disorder characterized by excessive or disproportionate anxiety about several aspects of life, such as work, social relationships, or financial matters. — Oxford Dictionary

This is what I was diagnosed with at the start of my senior year in high school.

Naturally existing became a burden I never thought I would have to bare. I began to dread the night, for it was no longer a time for sleeping but rather a time for being filled to the brim with a pounding in my chest so intense that it often left me immobilized. Even on the rare occasion I was able to fall asleep, I was awoken by what I can only describe as a thunder storm inside my head with lightening that crashed down into my heart.

Eating became an activity I seldom participated in as I could never be sure when I would be able to keep anything down.

These two simple parts of everyday life that I always took fore granted were now things I desperately wished I could do.

Early school mornings were my enemy. Most days it was a struggle just to make it to the shower let alone make through the day.

I lost myself to anxiety. I let it take over. The girl who once strutted down the street with eyes full of life now dragged herself through life with sunken eyes that fought to stay open. I was weak, detached, and fearful of the world around me. It never got easier and the thought of giving up crossed my mind more with each distressing day.

Then came the night that would change me forever. I sat sprawled out and defeated on my bathroom floor and I began to imagine what it would be like to end it, to cut myself open and let all the worry flow out. It was then, as my right hand rested against my violent heart and my left hand on a razor that I realized what I was feeling inside. What I was feeling inside was not death but in fact, life itself. My body was reacting to life. My heart wasn’t working against me, it was pumping the universe through my veins. Giving up was no longer an option, but taking on life was. I began to look at my anxiety as a cosmic burst of energy that reminded me of my existence here on this earth, and that is how I learned to sleep at night.