The Story Behind the Anxiety

Life works in mysterious ways and effects you in even more ways then you could ever imagine. Personally I never could of predicted how much my life was going to change. And to tell you the truth I would of never wanted it any other way. Even though my changes brought my anxiety into my life, it came with the greatest lessons I could of learned.

To paint you a picture, I grew up quickly, life has never given me a break, and I have always had to think of the effects a choice had on my decisions whither they were for financial descions, family decisions, or even small personal decisions. Everything had a consiquence. So, finally when I was 20 years old I thought I finally got my break. It was finally my time to have something truly amazing happen and I was on cloud nine. What happened you may ask... I met a man, one who I fell completely and udderly in love with. So much so that I moved across the world for him and we were married in our churches temple for all time and eternity. 

To me this was the change I had been waiting for my entire life... Oh how wrong I was. With a blink of an eye everything changed. He was colder, meaner, greedy, and a person I didn't recognize. But, I was married and I was determined to make it work, I refused to be another divorced statistic. 

I worked hard to support our new family and was constantly looking for and trying to bring out the man I fell in love with but he was gone, more then I realized. Time went by and almost 6 months into our marriage I went to work like any normal day and after only a few hours received a desturbing phone call informing me that my husband and all his things where gone. I was thrown into an instant panic. My heart stopped, my mind froze, and I could not move. Luckily, at the time I was nannying for three precious little girls and had to keep my focus on them and not give into my panic. It kept me level headed and I am eternally grateful for that. Hours later and after many phone calls his parents finally answered and told me that he was gone and was on his way across the country. It broke me. At that moment I was no longer the same person, I was changed forever. 

What followed was almost just as bad... The stares. I was in a sea of following eyes, judging eyes, that continued to push me deeper and harder in the mud that I was drowning in. The anxiety from my collapsing world was killing me. No matter who I talked to the topic came up, some were concealing and some were harsh and critical. I had to escape. 

Now what I did next was very stupid, I went back to school like planned. I ran away from everyone and everything so that I wouldn't have to face reality. So that I wouldn't have to look into anyone else's eye's and face my failures. To me it was already my failure and I didn't want more reminders. I couldn't see that I was the victim but instead I was the problem. And I beat myself up in such a bad way. For two years everything was my fault, big or small in my mind I was a mess up. And of course I did very poorly that semester at school. Actually, I didn''t leave my bed for a lot of it. The anxiety took over and the depression sunk in. The fun, happy person that I once was, was gone and a hollow vessel remained. 

I stopped caring, I stopped talking to the people I loved and cared about.  I lived in my own anxious world, were anxiety was my ruler. This went on for two solid years. I pushed everyone away, destroyed friendships, and destroyed myself. But this was something I had to go through because what I didn't see at the time was the great lessons I was learning and the wonderful person I would soon become because of it.

After my two years of solitude and complete misery I started to feel again. I started to find my motivation, my drive. I no longer wanted to allow this darkness to consume me. Slowly, I started to do more. I started to make goals and plans. Finally, I decided to move home, back to the place that I ran so far away from, the place where it all happened. And how happy I was when I got here. I began to go back to church, I reconnected with friends and family. I was social and full of life.

I came back a different person, I was so much better. My trial, my anxiety, my struggle made me new and improved. I now saw everything with new eyes, the sunsets were more beautiful, the rain was so soothing, the small smile exchanged between strangers captivating. It became my goal to help people who were suffering or needed that extra help because you may not realize it but it makes such a difference.

I still have a long way to go. I still have down days. I still have a million lessons to learn. My anxiety is still completely apart of my daily life. But I have hope and faith in the now and in the future and mine will be full of life. I will do everything I can to help make a difference in people's lives. Everyday will be used to do good. Don't let the challenges you've been given rob you from you're own life, there's so much good to be done.