I didn't actually know I had anxiety until about 5 years ago. I always thought anxiety was panic attacks. I don't actually have panic attacks that you can see. I always thought anxiety was needing to breathe out of a bag, or your heart beating really fast. My anxiety isn't like that. Mine happens when I am overwhelmed. When I was little I would cry, have a temper tantrum. I would run away. The last time I flipped out publicly was when I was in ninth grade home room. A classmate thought he would be funny and sit in my seat. I didn't know what to do so I started yelling at him about it. One thing led to another and I had flipped the desk over and ran out of the room to the bathroom. At my elementary school and junior high my teachers knew me. They knew I would cry and the I would come back and apologize. This however was a new school with new teachers who hadn't known me my whole life. I had worked very hard at this new school on not letting my emotions get away from me. That was after all one of the reason I was bullied. No one in this new school no one had seen me get that mad. So my teacher came after me. Looking back I am sure she thought I would put me or someone else in danger, but I just needed to cry. My emotions had gone into overload and I needed to let them out. To me crying has always been a private thing. Even though I cried a lot as a child, I always wanted to be alone when I cried. I am an angry crier. I cry if I am mad. I cry if I am scared. I cry when I am overwhelmed. I rarely cry when I am sad. So when I stormed off that day I went to the bathroom to cry and to be alone. I sat in the corner of the bathroom bunched up in a little ball and let my emotions pour out. My teacher came along and started talking to me as if I was demon possessed. (It was a Pentecostal school) she told me to not let the devil take control. She told me a lot of other things as well, but they all had the same general theme. Basically if I could get that upset I wasn't in control it had to be the devil taking control. I remember thinking that she didn't get it. I knew full well that this was just a case of my emotions taking over. Yet I realized something else that day, if I didn't find a way to control these emotions, people would think I was crazy. I looked at my teacher and I told her I would be all right. I lied straight to her face and swallowed away my tears and told her I needed to blow my nose, but I would be back in the home room in just a minute. I blew my nose I splashed water in my face, and I faked being alright. From that moment on I began to internalize my feelings. If something bothered me I pretended like nothing was wrong.
I began to be what people wanted me to be. I think most people thought that I was growing up. My dad often jokingly said "Sara was born crying and she didn't stop until she was 12". It was a joke, but in most teasing there is a grain of truth. I did cry a lot as a kid. I didn't understand that it was anxiety, and I don't think any adults recognized it as anxiety, but anxiety can look different than panic attacks. It can be out of control emotions as well. As I child I couldn't tell people how I felt, but often an outburst would be because several things were happening at once. On my sixth birthday our town was having a huge celebration for the sesquicentennial and I was going to ride my bike in the parade. I was already nervous because I had just barely started to ride it without training wheels. I was going to ride it farther than I ever had ridden it before. We were supposed to decorate our bikes, but my parents forgot about that until the night before, so we decorated with yarn. It looked really lame. The other kids had streamers and I had leftover yarn. My sister was going to be in the parade too, but she was going to dress up so they put her in another place in line. So here I was scared out of my mind because I was supposed to ride my bike all by myself when everyone was watching. You could hardly tell if was decorated so I was embarrassed, and I was nervous because I didn't know where my big sister had gone too. Then a lady came along and was asking everyone how old they were. I told her I was five. As she walked away I realized I was actually six because it was my birthday. I thought I had lied to her....and I burst into tears. My sister (who was actually not very far away at all just behind me where I couldn't see her) came to me asked why I was crying and I told her I lied to the lady because I was six not five. My sister explained that it didn't really matter and I managed to calm down. I was experiencing anxiety that day but as a six year old I could only express the last thing that had happened. Anxiety can be too many emotions boiling up inside of you until they burst.
As a little girl when those emotions would take control I would cry, but after that day in tenth grade I realized that it wasn't okay anymore. So I began to fake it. My heart could be pounding on the inside, I would feel lightheaded because I wasn't breathing well, but I could smile on the outside. I began to even be able to power through and function through these moments. I could talk, I could answer questions, I could just carry on like nothing was happening but I was exploding on the inside . That moment in tenth grade was the final step to hiding my mental health. As I washed my face that day, I thought in my head that no one can ever know how I feel. No one can know what I feel. No one can see my negative emotions. I had to hide them because I wasn't crazy because I wasn't demon possessed. I had to hide it because it wasn't okay to be me.
As I started counseling several years ago, I began to learn that all of my internalization of my emotions was harming me. I realized that as I hid my emotions from everyone, I was hurting myself more and more. Every time I felt overwhelmed I didn't let those emotions out. As a child, crying wasn't a healthy outlet either, but at least then I let the emotions out. Since I never got any help for my anxiety as a child I didn't learn a healthy outlet. Instead I hid my issue because I was worried what others would think. So just like the suicidal thoughts I buried them, but as I buried my negative emotions deeper inside of me the more suicidal thoughts I had. As I hid my negative emotions about little things that shouldn't overwhelm me but did, when something actually stressful like my parents divorce, college exams, or my dad dying of cancer I spiraled out of control. I have began to realize that I need a healthy outlet. When I am overwhelmed I journal or pet my cat. I have began the slow process of identifying my emotions. I have began to learn how to not internalize things anymore. Most importantly I needed to realize that I am human. That my emotions are mine, and they are okay to have. It doesn't matter that most adults don't cry when they are stressed out, I can if it helps me. It doesn't make me less of a person, it doesn't make me crazy. It's okay. My depression and anxiety is okay. Owning it has helped me. Blogging about has helped me. Realizing that God made me and will use me my imperfections and all has helped me. By owning it I have hope.
