Going to college is a scary, new chapter in life. Finding out you have an anxiety disorder makes it 10 billion times harder and scarier. When you constantly have episodes of extreme freak-outs for unknown reasons, unaware that you are experiencing an anxiety attack, it is nearly impossible to cope with. I learned the hard way that college is the worst place for anxiety to rear it’s ugly head due to the fact that you're already out of your comfort zone, in a place where you feel trapped with unfamiliar faces and surroundings. However, college put my strength and courage to the test.

I had to struggle through the lowest point of my life in a place that was anything but home and a prison in my mind. “It will get better.” “So many freshman go through the same thing, it's normal.” “Just give it time, things will get easier.” The amount of times I've heard these three pieces of advice and wanted to rip my hair out because I believed none of them were true is an infinite number. It is hard for people without anxiety to one hundred percent understand how I was continuously feeling. I was not myself. It was as if I was alone in this school of 4,000 students, things were not normal, life was never this difficult, and I was clueless as to why things were so bad to such a serious degree.

After making it through the first week with an incredible support system, I came to discover there was an uninvited demon that decided to join me for my college experience. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, the evil spirit that took over my mind and my well-being. Everything made sense and a breath of relief rushed through me as I realized that those freak-outs, my constant battle with my mind, the numerous times my body went numb, my deepened level of sadness and despair, were not my fault. As I looked back on my past, I saw how anxiety had always been by my side but was never truly brought out until I was left to be an independent adult at college.

The next step was coping with my anxiety. I let it ruin my view of college, lose who I was, and take away my happiness. There was not a chance I was going to let it negatively affect my life anymore or bring me back to the darkness I was trapped in. With the help of plenty of beneficial coping mechanisms, I am pushing myself to fight back, forcing my body and mind to use every ounce of strength and win. I promised myself I would never let this cruel disorder take me down again. Though currently I still struggle in college living with my anxiety, I like to believe that the worst is over and the best is yet to come.

Anxiety is my enemy, and so many others share the same enemy. Luckily it is a curable mental illness, and I can’t wait to kick it out of my life and live on being able to tell the story of my experience that is making me stronger than I ever thought I could be. Although my anxiety had the ability to break me and take a part of me I will never get back, I will never let it destroy me completely. It is teaching me how to fight my battles. It is teaching me how to depend on myself. It is teaching me that happiness does not come easy, we must work for it. It is teaching me that you never truly know what somebody is going through. And most importantly, it gave me strength. Strength to get through the hardest time of my life, so far, and fight like hell to get back to a good place; a place I am still working to get to. So to my demon, the devil within me- anxiety -I will never forgive you for what you put me through but thank you for teaching me life lessons that made me appreciate every day on this earth.