Fight or Flight

Ever since I can remember, I have always a scaredy cat. I have never been the type of person to do anything that could put myself in danger. I have never liked amusement parks, rope swings, water slides, four wheelers, cruises, roller coasters, airplanes, or anything you can think of that I could possibly get hurt while doing or putting my life into someone else's hands. My sister and I are polar opposites. She loves to try new things and be a dare devil type. Well to me she seems like a dare devil type but in reality she's just like everyone else. Anyways, I am always the "party pooper" that no one likes to be around. I'd rather stay safe then possibly getting hurt. I'm the 19 year old who doesn't like to go in the ocean for many reasons like not being able to see what's around me, drowning, getting eaten by a shark, and lots of others. I will not ride the Tower of Terror if someone paid me one million dollars. I don't like the feeling that roller coasters give you in your stomach and when you can't breathe. I've always had fears but when I was a Sophomore in high school the fears were turning into what seemed to be real.

Social Media has always been my worst enemy. I would read things on Twitter, Facebook, and on Google that would make me so anxious. Starting at some point my Sophomore year, I had awful anxiety. Not just occasional worries and fears, but full on panic attacks. To me, it came out of no where. My mind was constantly tricking me and had me so gullible. Whenever the sun set, my anxiety would click in like clock work. 5 years later, and I still don't know what caused this to happen. I was 15 years old and was like a baby during a thunder storm. Every Tuesday night, Dad and I would go pick up my sister from CSI where she had tumbling practice. I remember on the way home, EVERY week at the same time I would start having a panic attack. 


I was addicted to being with my mother. I never wanted to be away from her side. If anyone has the seen the episode of Full House, where they have an earthquake and Danny wasn't home with the rest of the family. Stephanie freaked out and never wanted to leave his side after that in case it happened again because she was so scared that something happened to him. Well, that was me. I couldn't stand being away from my mom. This was very difficult since I had to go to school and she had to go to work. It got to the point where I had basically kicked my dad out of his own bed, to where he was sleeping on the couch, and I was sleeping with my mom every night. My panic attacks had gotten to a nightly thing where I would be up all hours of the night and also keeping my momma up too.

Side note: Have I mentioned how awesome my parents are? I know in my last post I talked about how my dad was so patient with sharing a bathroom with 5 girls at the beach, but its so much more than that. My dad is always putting himself before others and especially for his girls. He is always going above and beyond for my sister and me. For MONTHS, he gave up his bed to me when I needed to be by my momma. (well forced out ;) ) And my mom, my mom has been SO patient with me, no matter how much I drive her insane with my anxiety, and she always has the right words to say to me. 

When I would go to school, after a few class periods I would start to feel sick and go to the nurse to call mom and I wanted to be checked out. At that point, I didn't know that this was my brain tricking me and I actually thought I was sick. After lots of conversation and brainstorming, my parents decided that I needed to go see someone for my anxiety. The doctors suggested that I start taking medicine for my anxiety. My parents were very hesitant about putting me on medicine at 15 years old. So they put it off for a few months but once it started to get worse they decided that we would try it because I was miserable and we were all exhausted. After a few months of my anxiety getting more extreme, I started to have patterns in my panic attacks. We didn't recognize these patterns at the time, but now we know about them. Whenever I would walk upstairs, something would trigger my anxiety. When I would feel out of breath from the stairs, I would start to panic because I thought I was going to pass out. (side note: one of my biggest fears is hospitals and ambulances. I had started to make the connection that usually when people pass out at school, they would call the ambulance. So in my brain, passing out = ambulance = hospital= I die.) I know that sounds crazy, but that is what I had decided happens when someone passes out, and then people die in hospitals so I figured I would die too, which is another fear I have. And somehow that all led to passing out. Then passing out led to stairs and stairs led to school. So I got to the point where I was afraid of school, because school had stairs, stairs means passing out, passing out means ambulance, ambulance means hospital, and hospital means dying. Thats basically how my mind set was and still is. 

After my mind started making all those connections, my anxiety would start kicking in, in the classes before I would have to walk up stairs. Like I said before, at that time we didn't make the connections of why this was happening but now we know. So at that time, it still was just like I was constantly having panic attacks. I wasn't sleeping and I was missing lots of time in class because I would go to the bathroom when I was having a panic attack. 

This was such a rough time in my life and I am so glad that, to an extent, it is over. I am still currently dealing with a lot of anxiety that I will write about in my next post!!

Thank you for reading!!