I wanted to start off my saying that dealing with my anxiety and ensuing depression has been the hardest thing I've ever done. I had my first panic attack when I was 5 years old in kindergarten. My anxiety was triggered by darkness, nighttime when it was time to go to sleep. It took about
a year before my parents realized that I was having actual panic attacks and not just laying a tantrum because I wanted something. I saw an alternate healer(acupuncture massage etc) and I got better; the whole ordeal just faded away into the back of my mind.
Fast forward to senior year, I had just graduated from highschool when my panic attacks came back in full swing. I had just gone through a horrible break up and was racked with guilt. For months on end I struggled with anxiety, depression, extreme sleep deprivation and constant nausea. The panic attacks were several times a day: mywhole body would start trembling, my heart felt like it was going to explode, and I felt like I was choking. No mater how much I breathed I just couldn't get enough oxygen. I felt like I was lost in a black abyss of anxiety and fear and darkness. I was so scared, so lost, so confused, so TIRED. I was constantly tired. I contemplated suicide a couple of times. Not that I'm proud of it. I really have my friends and family to thank for helping me out of that hole. I started daily a daily yoga and meditation practice- I could not believe how incredible the results were! I had tried different prescript
ions: alprazolam, Xanax, lorazepam. But none of them helped me like yoga.
It's been hard for me to accept that my anxiety might never go away. Yoga and meditation help keep it at bay, but extremely stressful situations always trigger anxiety. But it is a every day thing. I still deal daily with that asfixiating feeling that I can't get enough oxygen no matter how much I gulp in air. I still wake up anxious and nauseous in the morning. And the tiredness: constantly being tired because I can never get enough sleep. I think the hardest thing about
my journey with anxiety has been the loneliness. I've never really felt like someone understood 100% what I've been feeling- when I found this blog, tears started streaming because I couldn't believe that I wasn't alone. It makes me feel so much stronger knowing that there are people out there who are just like me: surviving one day at a time, one breath at a time. It makes me feel like theres hope.
