For as long as I can remember, life has always felt harder for me. Whether it be school, my social life, or an increased heart rate, my day to day just seemed to be harder than everyone around me.

My first issue here is that I was and still do compare my life to other people. I really do not know other peoples day to day lives, so this was and still is not helpful in any way.

While moving around old paperwork a few years back, something resurfaced. All my documentation from elementary school. After reviewing it this many years later, I broke into laughter. All the issues I have had since being a little girl were directly related to general anxiety disorder. Of course, being so young, that was not known at the time.

When I got the official diagnosis of general anxiety disorder my sophomore year of high school, I felt relieved. Like maybe I was not crazy and my day to day life was indeed normal just heightened by lack of concentration and unwanted thoughts.

I have always had an issue with being late or being picked up late. I also could never sleep out or have a messy closet. These are just a few examples of my silly traits that all stem from anxiety. In all these cases, I would and still do repeatedly go over thoughts that ultimately lead to a lack of calmness.

I am solely the reason for my anxiety and recently just came to that conclusion.

In high school, however, I could not come to that understanding and conclusively drove myself insane. Just like most people with general anxiety disorder, I started medication. I never wanted to tell people this because I was so ashamed. I thought down upon myself because I needed a medication to soothe my thoughts. That was so stupid of me. It literally leads to more anxiety.

I genuinely believe that every anxiety medication I have taken thus far have all been placebos. (for me)

A pill that magically takes your thoughts away and reduces your heart rate. I would walk around like I was literally cured. Pretending that I did not have all my same issues because I now had a drug to use as an excuse. If I was freaking out or felt anxious I would pop my daily pill and pretend that all was ok.

But I was pretending. Nothing was ok. I still had anxiety.

I still had all my same issues just never dealt with them in the way I needed to.

There was a moment when I was switching between medications that I made myself so anxious about the fact that I did not have something to rely on that I drove myself into a tizzy.

That's when I knew I had a serious issue. I have never been the type to rely on anything so why did I absolutely need an anxiety medication to function.

I did not.

My anxiety is diagnosed and real but I do not need a medication to fix it. It took me 19 years to not only figure that one out but to figure out that I'm the type of person who needs to talk and deal with my anxiety not take a pill to reduce it. My goal was to never reduce it but to get rid of it as a whole.

Not only do I spend too much time planning and overthinking, I also spend too much time apologizing and replaying scenarios.

So I recently stopped. I tried this new thing called spontaneity and its working out pretty well for me.

I stopped doing all the things I used to do. I stopped freaking out about grades because the universe has a funny way of working things like that out.

I stopped replaying situations in my head because the past is the past and I can not change anything that I have already done.

I stopped apologizing for who I am. I am fucking weird and I stopped caring about the people who judged me for that.. cause guess what? I do not need those type of people in my life, and getting anxious about if people like me is way too elementary.

I also stopped caring and thinking so god damn much. I just started to live and in doing so I've not only found myself but I've found that over half of my "anxiety" issues were all in my head or being made up by me in my head.

I simply am the cause of my own anxiety and have been blaming everyone else for it. It is no one else's fault that I am the way I am. It is not even a fault. It is human nature. Once I accepted that my heart stopped racing and I could think clearly for the first time in my life.

I still have anxiety but I have a new outlook on it.

There are always going to be things in life that cause me to react or freak out, but overthinking and being impulsive are just not worth it anymore. Life is short. Too short.

I needed to stop THINKING about living life and just truly live it.

I am no longer ashamed of my anxiety or disappointed in who I am because of it. My anxiety is not an excuse for who I am. It is who I am. I no longer let it control me.

I control it.

I'm a girl with anxiety. How about you?