I used to be a normal kid. I didn't know what anxiety was mainly because of my parents Eastern European background and to them "anxiety" was a signal of weakness and anyone that was afflicted with it just needed to grow a backbone. And that's how I went on thinking for most of my high school career- that people with "anxiety" were just weak minded and pushovers and that they used it as an excuse to be quiet. And now I cannot believe how ignorant I was. Shortly after my seventeenth birthday, I began to be anxious. It first started with insomnia and many sleepless nights. Then came the obsessive, overthinking thoughts. "Is everything going to be okay?" "What am I going to do with my life?" "Did I forget anything?" "How will I get a job?" "Where am I going to go to college?" "Am I skinny enough?" "Does anybody love me?" "Is anybody looking at me right now?" "Would anyone care if I died?" Those are just to name a few. And those questions would race my mind at night and keep me up. Gradually, those thoughts followed me to school everyday. And then, before I knew it, going to school became the most agonizing thing.

I was actually afraid to go to school.

I do not remember the exact moment or day that I developed my general anxiety disorder (GAD), but I do remember there was ignorance. It was like a curtain separating anxiety and sanity, and once the curtain was lifted, I became hypersensitive to myself and to my environment, and my thoughts soon consumed every aspect of my life. The curtain was there to protect myself from myself. Before, I would sit in class calmly, not really aware of anyone or my body, and I would take notes, doodle, all without a care in the world because I felt safe where I was. Then, when the curtain was lifted, it is like my body went into overdrive. I felt my hands sweating, I was barely able to breathe, and the obsessive thoughts would flood my mind. My body was constantly in fight or flight, and I no longer felt safe. The removal of the curtain of ignorance is when anxiety overtakes someone's sanity because having anxiety feels like you are losing your mind.

A quote by Ozzy Osbourne resonates the most with me to describe this feeling:

"Out of all of the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."