S.A.

I have suffered from severe anxiety, panic, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and intense perfectionism since I was born. Some of my earliest memories include repeating prayers to prevent my family from dying, needing to do things in multiples of 7 or 12, or tapping my fingers “the right” amount of times on the desks at school to ensure my success. My brain’s faulty patterns and mechanisms directed my relationships and behaviors without me realizing it—it was my normal. I refused to tell anyone my experiences for I feared this vulnerability made me a disappointment, unlovable, and too broken. I created a mirage of my life for people to view—I was smart and got great grades, I was athletic and the star of my sports teams, and I helped others endlessly. I did no wrong. It wasn’t because I valued this or wanted to—I had to. My condition was suffocating, yet I had no escape or outlet, and because there was no outward struggle, everyone assumed the best. 

Starting in middle school, my peers began calling me “perfect”—a word that still acidifies my stomach. This name became my doom and destruction, an impossible role to fill, but one I had no choice but to take on. Without the perfect grades, athleticism, and kindness, who was I? The fear of not knowing who I truly was and if I was accepted drove me to work even harder, pray even more, tell people less and less… anything to be the “perfect” girl people knew me as. I became an icy queen, unapproachable and unreachable by my peers. Boys were intimidated by me and girls were resentful. I was robotic, a prisoner both of people’s perceptions and my brain’s own rigid illnesses. I became defensive to my family, bristling when someone asked me how my day was, and then breaking down alone in the shower, sobbing and depressed, desperately confused and shattered by my inability to share even the smallest of my thoughts and feelings. I was a plutonium bomb ready to explode. 

And boy did I. 

My senior year of high school, with college applications, leadership in sports, AP classes, and increasing anxiety about my future, my anxiety and OCD grew out of hand, and I barely spoke, simply performing rituals and obsessing about how I could “fix” my life. I began a desperate search for anything that would leave me feeling I still had control, and soon found this in what I ate and how much I ate. I developed anorexia not out of the superficial desire to be thin, but out of incapacitating anxiety over my personal identity, absent self-worth, and stifling uncertainty about the future. People already saw me as thin and athletic, so I could control that if I controlled my intake. It made me feel good holding that control over my body and people’s perceptions. 

But my starving body disagreed, and my physical health declined rapidly. My physical decay gave way to my mother’s worry and she quickly brought me to see my first ever therapist. I was terrified. I didn’t want her to tell me what I feared was the reality, but I was so desperate for relief that it all came out. The diagnosis was delivered, and the therapy started; I saw a therapist and dietitian once a week for the summer before Cal Poly. Despite gaining most of the weight back, I was still wrought with anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and increasingly depressive moods; the focus on the food had distracted from the root of my disease. When September came, my improvement warranted my move to Cal Poly, and I did so with a kind of desperation. Maybe if I got away from the origin of all of this, it would go away. This proved strikingly false. No one at Cal Poly knew who I was or that I was perfect. It was both refreshing and devastating, as I struggled to find any identity within myself. Who are you when all you’ve been is a robot? Social media and the outside world were oblivious to my pain, and they were in no way going to find out that I was, indeed, any less than perfect and whole.

At the beginning of my junior year, perhaps in a stroke of fate, I had my largest panic attack—the world tipped and spun, faded in and out like a dream, and I was convinced I was going to die. No longer able to help myself, I had no choice but to ask my parents, and they became my champions; reaching out saved me, and I now affirm the essentiality of doing so in recovery from any form of pain. While the debilitating panic continued day and night for the next three months, my mother furiously searched for a new therapist suited for me. I soon met her—a woman specialized in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is aimed at changing behavior and cognitive patterns to manage life with a mental disorder. With much speculation, I began taking antidepressants, a routine that brought my panic down enough to make therapy useful. My world suddenly went from spinning, distant images to clear, in-touch realities. 

I began to live. 

CBT therapy focused on being present with my terrifying feelings and thoughts without trying to alter them. As difficult as this was, I experienced immediate relief. Going to class even though I was sure it would cause another panic attack, talking to my roommates about my day even though there was a possibility they may judge me, and choosing to not count to twelve in my head incessantly are some behaviors I performed that caused decreases in overall anxiety. I began to fight the faulty alarm system in my brain by simply choosing to do the opposite of what it told me. I was regaining my life back, not by running from the emotions or thoughts, but rather by sitting with them as if they were old friends. 

I also began to talk. Talk and talk and talk. My mom never knew how emotional, dramatic, and funny I could be. My dad never knew we could have a real relationship. My sister never dreamed I would tell her about crushes and drama. Personally, I never thought I could feel so much and feel good about sharing it with others. The practice of allowing others into my experiences and listening openly to their lives, gave me newfound joy, empathy, belonging and fulfillment. I became infatuated with forming real connections with people, because I was finally truly present in my own life and the lives of those I cared about. I was emboldened by the open relationships I had created.

Although my mental health struggles stole moments and years from me, they have made me a person with an immense capacity for empathy, love, and life. Only because I have struggled and overcome am I fully alive; only because I have experienced pain and grown through it do I feel true joy; and only because I have felt the crushing discomfort of vulnerability do I experience real love and belonging. I still struggle most days with some amount of anxiety and OCD, but I now know it intimately and have the power to decide how it affects me. I choose to reach for support and connection, conquer my fears, and strive to fully experience all parts of life in full. Adventure, failure, anxiety, and love are all awaiting me, and I cannot wait to embrace them all.