Breaking the Surface

I knew from a very early age I was different. I could never quite understand why I always felt out of place or like I never fit in I just knew I wasn’t like everyone else.

I can remember multiple times from the age of 5 waking up crying the in middle of the night worrying about adult things that no child at the age of 5 should be worrying about. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to know how to pay my bills or drive a car. Thinking about that now sounds crazy to me and how the connection to what I was experiencing wasn’t found out sooner? My mom would then try and comfort me by holding me until I fell back asleep.

With every change of anything new I would be sick to my stomach with huge knots to the point of throwing up. I did not do well with anything new or different. Every new school year, for the first few weeks, I would cry and be sick until I got used to the new routine or the new change of things.

And when I knew something new was about to happen, I would build up the anticipation making myself sick before anything even happened. I always felt immense fear and could never understand why.

My freshman year of high school I started a very toxic abusive relationship that just made what I was feeling worse. By my sophomore year I was sicker than ever living daily with knots in my stomach and not able to eat much, I had even lost some weight. That was when my mom took me to see my first therapist.

To think about going to see a therapist at the age of 16 was terrifying, this made what I was feeling true and very real. The therapist was nice however; the techniques she had me doing did not seem to help. I did find out that what I had been experiencing all my life was anxiety! Having a name to what I had been feeling for over a decade made me feel like maybe there was hope to feeling better.

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