Show Me A Way Out

As I type this entry my legs are shaking uncontrollably and my hands are having difficulty finding the keys to punch... because my anxiety is present. I was diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder just this past December 2020, but it had always been present in my life from a very young age. 

I knew since I was a kid that there was something different about me just by the way I processed information and my environment. No, not in the child genius type of way // but in a more worry wart type of way. I'll give you guys some examples.

• Age 5 years old when I was starting kindergarten, I was anxious about starting school because it meant I would be away from my mom. That is what you call separation anxiety. She brought me to school like any normal parent and all the kids played together. Except me, I held her hand for dear life on the verge of crying my heart out. Then she left... and I cried the whole day in school sitting in front of the classroom waiting for her. It got so bad that I had to stop going to school and wait till the next school year because she thought I just wasn't ready. She assumed wrong. The next year, it was even worse. I would run after her when she started to leave and begged her to stay, the principal let her stay for month. She was known around the school as "that girls mom who sits outside the classroom"... I was convinced that if my mom left me at school, she'd never come back.
• As early as I could remember I used to sleep in the same bed as my mom (very common for Filipinos) and I remember always holding onto the hem of her shirt because... AGAIN... I was convinced that when I open my eyes in the morning, she'd be gone.
• When I was 7 years old my family went on a vacation at the beach, my dad was home from the US for a month. While at the beach he decided to go for a swim, as I saw him go into the ocean alarm bells started going off in my head. I somehow convinced myself that he was going to drown and die... I threw a fit and begged everyone in my family to get him out of the water because he was going to die! They tried everything to calm me down but nothing helped, eventually they got my dad's attention to come back to shore. He picked me up and consoled me, telling me that everything was going to be fine.
• I hated being sick, other kids loved being sick because it meant they could stay home. Not little Mitzee, I hated being sick because I would convince myself that I was terminally ill. 

I don't remember a time when I wasn't worrying. I can't watch a video of people enjoying things without thinking in the back of my head about all the horrible things that could happen to them. Frankly, that's the reason why I am so terrified to do so many things. 

I suffer with depression and also have an eating disorder. Well I'm recovering from my eating disorder, but if we're being honest here, I've been "recovering" for YEARS! My eating disorder is still something that I deal with but try to fight off. So as you can see, mental disorder is not new to me.

You might be wondering why I was only diagnosed with anxiety disorder in December 2020 even though I knew I had been suffering from it. Well, you see, anxiety. hahaha. I was scared to add another fucking disorder on my already growing list of disorders. Because aside from my mental disorders I also have PCOS or for a longer term, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. That's a different story time, you can google it if you'd like to know more. 

Before I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder, I didn't handle anxiety well. I would worry for days and weeks, where I couldn't go to sleep and that "problem" was the only thing to occupy my fragile little mind. 

But this past December 2020 (it's only fitting that it happened in 2020 amiright?) I went through something very traumatic (for me at least) and it triggered my anxiety like never before. My heart was beating out of my chest, I couldn't focus, my hands were clammy, I was in a daze, and I was consumed by negative thoughts. I was having anxiety attacks right after the other. That's when I decided to see a doctor, and what do you know, he diagnosed me with Anxiety Disorder and put me on medication. 

I won't get into detail about what triggered my anxiety attacks because I can't even talk about it without having an anxiety attack. But it got so bad that my whole family knew about it and I would be crying every night due to my attacks, had to sleep with my mom because that was the only place where I felt safe. I had to quit my job to focus on my mental health... Everything changed when I was diagnosed, I had to come up with a routine and keep my mind busy.

After a month, I started feeling better. Little by little I started getting used to my new routine and my new set up. After awhile I didn't wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares, sleeping became better. So I decided to go back to my room and start fresh. 

Then February hit and I was tired of anxiety ruling my life, I decided that I wanted to rule my own life and not let anxiety rule me... So I faced the one thing that I feared and knew that it might trigger my anxiety but I said what the heck... I felt good about it at that time, even the next day. But then it crept up on me like a pesky little insect... Anxiety was back... and I was back in my mom's room because the nightmares were back again. I didn't feel safe and I didn't feel okay.

I was back to the drawing board, I have to relearn everything all over again. It's like a fucking labyrinth, there's just no way out of this thing, or when I do find it, it doesn't last very long and I'm back in the starting line again. I need someone to show me a way out.

I'm sorry, this isn't one of those blogpost that has a happy ending in the end... Not yet at least, I'm still navigating my way through this disorder. I have hope that there will be better days ahead, not just better days but better months and years. 

Everyday is a day to get better and that I know is true. So to anyone in my life who is reading this, be patient with me. please. 

-Mitzee