I couldn't point out to you the first time I ever felt really, genuinely anxious. I couldn't point out to you the instant that it stopped being a minor inconvenience and became a genuine problem.
What I can point out is the moment I realized that anxiety would change my life forever.
But in order to tell you about that day, I first need to tell you about my life in the months prior.
I was nearing the end of sixth grade when my grandfather passed away. I was an awkward preteen in catholic, just learning how to wear "girl jeans" and wear lipgloss. I went to Our Lady of Mercy School in a city called Daly City, a suburb nestled right up next to San Francisco. I grew up in the suburb and was involved in a little bit of everything - spelling bees, academic decathlon, drama club, talent shows. While my grandfather was alive, he was there for every minute, videotaping and acting as my personal cheering section, no matter what the occasion.
When he passed away, everyone said I was such a trooper, such a grown up. I went back to school after about a week or so, and I kept chugging along as though everything was fine - for that, the praise kept on coming. So strong, they said. But the first big change I noticed was that I stopped wanting to sing. I was too nervous. I had never described myself as a nervous person in my life.
In seventh grade, one of my classmates lost her father. His funeral was being held in our parish during our classes, and so my teacher, Mrs. Vollert, elected that we as a class should all attend and show our support for her.
So there I was, kneeling in the pew and saying a prayer for my classmate's father and watching people filing in before the funeral service. I saw them all dressed in their mourning clothes, crying and clinging to one another - I remembered that months earlier, my own grandfather's funeral had been in here. Months ago, it had been me in here. Months ago, I had suffered my own loss and I didn't know how to deal with it yet. I'd hardly even cried. Yet here I was, expected to support someone going through what I still hadn't gotten out the other side of yet.
Suddenly, I felt heavy - like I had been dropped into an ocean with weights on my arms and I was trying to get back to the surface. But I couldn't. I just felt like I was being dragged further and further downwards. I felt my pulse racing, my throat tightening. I tried to keep saying a prayer and found that I couldn't even get through the words I had memorized for my entire life. Not even a simple prayer was making sense in my head. It was heaviness, and apprehension. It was a feeling of the room getting smaller and smaller.
And it hit me - I couldn't do this. I wanted to. I wanted to be strong like I'd been doing so well for months, but I just couldn't. I quietly stood up and made my way up a row or two to my teacher and tapped her timidly on he shoulder. "I think I need to stay outside," I said in a defeated voice. "I don't think I can handle being here.:
Mrs. Vollert stared at me for a while, not saying anything, and I immediately wished I could take it back. Never taking her eyes off of me, she got up and gestured for me to follow her. We wordlessly walked out of the church, and she marched me across the front lawn to the office, ordering me to sit in a seat in the main lobby. I quietly did as I was told - and upon seeing the way she stared at me, I never felt so small in my life. She towered over me and put her face close to mine.
"Your classmate just lost her dad," she said, as though I didn't understand what was happening. "And we're supposed to be supporting her."
I stumbled through my explanation that my grandfather had just recently died too, that his funeral had been in the came church, and that I just felt overwhelmed. She didn't know me all that well, but I was sure that if she knew what I had been through, she would understand. I was still shaking. I noticed that she didn't move her face away from mine yet, but now her expression had changed.
She was angry. She was turning red, with her lips tight and her nostrils flaring.
"You're being very selfish. You sit here and think about that."
So I sat, and I thought. The secretary at the front desk had been told not to let anyone come and "chat" with me, so I had plenty of time to think. In that span of time, the idea was planted in my mind. That sinking sense of apprehension I felt, the chilling sense of being overwhelmed and drowning - those were bad things to feel. And the fact that I felt them made me bad and selfish. And now, I deserved for no one to talk to me because of it.
At twelve years old, I learned a hard lesson - it was okay to be sick on the inside. People would write you get well cards, they would say they hoped you felt better and let you rest. If you were throwing up or running a fever, people would fall all over themselves to try and take care of you. Teachers would never be mad at you, because they knew you couldn't help it.
But when you felt sick on the inside - when you felt like you were sinking into someplace cold and dark and it made you shake in fear, even if you didn't know exactly why - that wasn't real, That was something you made up in your head to get attention, to get out of things you didn't want to do.
And so, the message was given to me at a very young age that being able to cope with something in your own mind was selfish. You were never meant to verbalize it. You were never meant to ask for help about it. Ever.
I wonder sometimes... would my adolescence have been different if that day had not gone the way it did? How different would my life be today?
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