After five long months of confusion and stress, I finally went to my doctor and got help for my anxiety.

At that point, I had been enduring stress pretty smoothly for 17 years. Sure, there was a research paper or two that caused some tears, but that's bound to happen.

This was different. Suddenly, I couldn't manage my stress, and it began affecting my development as a person.

If I'm being honest, I dreaded having to go to that appointment. It was needed and long overdue, but I never wanted to be diagnosed with anything.

None of us are blind to the stigma that still surrounds mental illness. To this day, I still remember all of the times people made jokes about me being anxious and falling apart for a little bit.

It was a scary experience that I had to go through pretty much alone. No one stuck around long enough to actually get me help.

It felt like more and more weights were being tied to me as I tried to tread in a 20-foot-deep pool, while everyone closest to me was just sitting around asking why I couldn't swim all of a sudden.

If I'm being honest, I didn't know the answer. Once I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and started going to therapy, I told some of my closest friends, and that was pretty much it.

Anyone who asked why I was missing school so much or where I'd go when I would leave and come back in the middle of the day was simply told "I had an appointment" or "I wasn't here."

Now, however, is a different story.

Hell yeah, I have anxiety. But it no longer defines who I am. I'm a young woman with anxiety, and I won't apologize for it.

I still go out with my friends, and I'm going away to college like everyone else. I have plans to move to New York City or Boston or even Seattle, and I want to study abroad in another country one day.

Although anxiety has held me back before, I refuse to let it tie me down any longer. It's not who I am, and it's not even a part of me anymore.

My anxiety is just something I deal with. You'll probably never see it, and those who have know that I don't like to let it stick around when it does get bad.

Your jokes aren't funny or tasteful. I don't find it funny that almost a year of my life was ruined by the fact that I would cry on my way to school, work and my friends' houses because I was scared of whatever I thought would go wrong.

I don't find it funny that I had to miss classes for most of my senior year because I had to go to a therapist, all because I felt like I had nobody to help me.

I especially don't find it funny when you characterize me by my anxiety and act like it's something that's going to hold me back. It's never going to because it isn't a part of me.

Surprise, I have anxiety. And I can still function like a normal human.