Ever since I could remember I suffered from what I always thought was “nervousness.” I was awkward and uncomfortable in social situations; I clung got my Mom like lint when she tried to drop me off for school, and when the sun set and the sky blackened I had this insatiable fear of going to sleep.

Everything scared me.

I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and it would get so bad that I’d cry and shake until I found a way to calm myself down. I was eight.

We actually thought there was something physically wrong with me, maybe I was lactose intolerant, etc. and after months of tests, we chalked it up to just be a case of the nervous butterflies.

These butterflies, however, weren’t just fluttering, they were consuming me from the inside out… and I was still calling them “butterflies?”

I was so terrified of the world around me that I refused to be alone, ever, and thus the diagnosis of separation anxiety was given to me by a nice lady whose couch I perched myself on weekly until I felt better.

Therapy helped, but I was thirteen, and even then, deep down, I knew that wasn’t my issue. I’d say that those sessions were kind of like band-aids; they covered up the problem without really healing it.

The band-aid stuck for a few years until my junior year of High School, and I finally realized it didn’t even begin to cover the parts of me that were wounded. To fix myself I first needed to learn where the wounds came from, how they manifested themselves into wounds, and how I could begin to heal myself.

I found a therapist who worked wonders. She didn’t lecture me or make me feel like an outcast. She apologized for what I’d been through, as if any of it was her fault. She listened, without interrupting. She suggested, but never demanded. I felt safe, I felt understood, and most importantly I felt okay.

I only went for a few months until I felt like I could do the rest on my own. I was empowered, not crazy, and when I began to view myself this way, I started to heal.

I learned why I got the butterflies, and then I set them free.

I’m often told that anxiety is “all in my head,” that there’s no cure because it’s “not real,” and I can understand why people feel that way. If you can’t see it and it doesn’t haunt you at night, how can I expect you to sympathize with it?

The thing is, though, it is real, for so many people. Some have it so severe they never truly recover, and others can tame it, but it is an awful, awful condition that is belittled by so many people who simply don’t take the time to understand it.

If you do not suffer from it, please don’t take your peaceful sleep for granted, and please refrain from telling us to “relax,” as though that makes anything better.

If you do have it, find someone to talk to so you can begin to unravel the tangled mess of fear that you’re allowing to consume you. It’s a slow and daunting process, I know, and I don’t think it ever truly goes away, but learning how you can cope with it and understanding where it comes from will help you regain control of your life and redefine who you are; who you’re meant to be. It’s okay to ask for help.