My Mental HEalth Journey

Mikayla B.

When I get anxious I feel my heart rate and breathing become elevated and uneven. I   become anxious and get anxiety attacks quite easily. I over analyze things which makes me feel overwhelmed. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the perfect person and it’s really not mentally good for me.

Last night, Monday December 10, my dad told me that him and my step mom are getting a divorce. I was kind of sad because she has been in my life for a little over 6 years now. My dad had a daughter with her, she is the most precious thing to exist and I don’t want her to ever find out that they are splitting. We’re selling the house in January but I want to stay in my house but my dad just said we have to find another house, I don’t know why we can’t just stay but I can’t change that.

A couple weeks ago I got diagnosed with anxiety, catastrophic anxiety, and paranoia. It made me feel weird now that I know what I really have but at the same time I was glad and now

me and my counselor can work on it. The catastrophic anxiety began from the tornado I was in, I honestly felt like I was going to die and it has stuck with me for 10+ years. The anxiety is from a group of girls that treated me as if I wasn’t a person with human feelings, all they wanted to do was hurt me. The paranoia is from my anxiety worsening for years and years and not getting the help I needed.

It’s weird thinking now that I have all of these things and I know why I am the way I am. Having anxiety + paranoia is the worst combination because the anxiety is my brain trying to protect me from things that happened and the paranoia is just me thinking that something unimaginable is happening and It kind of feels like I’m going crazy. When I get paranoia my anxiety kicks in and I think it’s real and then I get scared and I then I start to make a plan about how to get out of whatever my brain is making me think is happening.  

I’ve had anxiety attacks twice at school this year, most of the time they’re caused by something small like two words or someone telling me I’m sitting in the wrong seat. I feel like I shouldn't have these things because there's people who have been through way worse and I was just friends with mean people and was in a tornado when I was younger.

I didn’t want to tell anyone when I got diagnosed but I told 4 close friends and obviously my immediate family but I guess now everyone will know and I think I’m okay with that.

I haven’t made huge progress since my diagnosis but I am working towards that. I’m having doubts that I may not be able to reach that goal.  It’s super hard to change a mindset I’ve had since the age of 4.

My mom sometimes gives me the feeling that she doesn’t really believe me about my anxiety, I want to work on that as well with my counselor. My counselor showed me some statistics about how anxiety is the most common mental illness but it didn’t make me feel much better.

I hate people who say how they have anxiety because they don’t like presenting  when everyone gets anxiety in different situations but it doesn’t mean they are diagnosed with it. Anxiety is your brain trying to protect you and everyone has in some situations but mine works overtime and is always trying to protect me from virtually nothing.