My experience dealing with anxiety at UVA

They say that the very beginning of your college years will always be the most difficult. You’re away from your parents for the first time, living on your own with brand new people.

I get how that can be hard. But I loved it. I’ve always been incredibly independent and I thrived my first year of college. I made so many new friends. I joined all kinds of clubs, volunteered, joined a sorority, got good grades, and was so very happy.

I thought that the anxiety that had plagued my life in high school was gone. Until it wasn’t.

I think in the novelty of college I focused on anything other than my mental health. I went out all the time, made stupid choices – but I was incredibly happy. My anxiety didn’t seem to be a part of me anymore, it didn’t seem to be this thing that almost defined me. Until my second year.

Somehow all of my anxiety caught up to me and hit me like moving truck.

I remember the first time it really hit me, a few weeks into second year. I was sitting in my global studies class when suddenly I looked around and realized that there were over a hundred people sitting silently around me.

The room seemed to get smaller and smaller around me and suddenly the fear I’ve come to know so well had me in its grasp. As my heart pounded in my chest and I found myself gasping for air, I somehow mustered the courage to get up, grab my things and run out of the classroom as quickly as I could.

I hoped that it was only a bad day, something that just happened with no reason and wouldn’t happen again. But it kept happening and happening until I found myself unable to sit in any of my lecture classes anymore. Even walking to class set me into a state of panic, dread and overwhelming sadness at my inability to do what I needed to do.

This went on for months and sent me into a spiral of insecurity, constant anxiety, and an anger that I took out on other people.

After I finally saw a psychiatrist, I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and put on two different medications.

I thought the meds would make me instantly better, somehow make me magically calm and happy and everything would go back to first year. But somehow, the adjustment period to the medication was even worse than what I had dealt with for months – the meds seemed to be making me worse, not better.

Anxiety would randomly hit me in waves, so much worse than in the past. I would sit on my couch and shake and sob and panic. It was at that point that I begun to push everyone away, my moodiness took a hold of me and I was angry at myself for my anxiety and angry at the medicine for not instantly fixing my mental health.

After about a week and a half, my body began to adjust to the Zoloft and though I was calmer and could stay in classes for longer, I was incredibly numb (the stereotype of anti-anxiety meds, huh?). But honestly, at this point, being numb was the best thing that happened to me.

After months of crippling fear, not feeling anything was amazing. Somehow I could breathe again. And even though I didn’t laugh as often and stared off in silence a lot more often, I wasn’t as anxious and that was all I needed.

Deciding to see my psychiatrist once a week was probably the best thing I could have done. He didn’t indulge my victimizing attitude and didn’t sugar coat his thoughts, and that was something that I really needed at the time.

I needed someone who didn’t pity me but wanted to work towards making me better. He helped me look at the underlying causes for my anxiety (yay – control issues) but he also gave me something much more important. He gave me a sense of stability, the assurance that there was someone there who wanted me to get out of my rut as badly as I did and somehow understood my illogical thoughts.

Eventually, after every Tuesday afternoon I would feel a little better and started thinking more and more about my life experiences, why I’m as anxious as I am, and why I feel the need to come off a certain way to other people. You wouldn’t think so, but each day I felt as though I could manage my anxiety better and better. Sitting in class was hard, but not unbearable. I was happier and didn’t have breakdowns every single day (only a few breakdowns a month for me! It’s glorious. Seriously).

I think after you’ve hit rock bottom, everything that comes after becomes not so much easier, but better. Have you ever seen anyone jump up and down with joy because they were able to sit through a 50 minute long lecture? Hint: that was me. I would get excited over being able to do things I hadn’t been able to do for months, and though it wasn’t easy or fun, it was comparatively so much better than what I had been going through.

When my anxiety hit me during the second week of school, all I wanted was to go back to the person I was my first year of college. By the time finals rolled around, I was a healthier, more stable, secure and confident person, not at all the fake bubbly persona everyone had come to know my first year, I finally allowed myself to be myself.

The horrid thing about social anxiety is the preoccupation with what other people think of you. Going through this past semester I’ve made a conscious decision to put my mental health above any expectations I think other people may have of me.

This upcoming semester will be a selfish one, because once you go through hell because you’re afraid of people rejecting you, you realize the insignificance of someone accepting you for who you’re not.
I definitely hit my rock bottom. But I can only go up from here.