When you’re faced with a long distance relationship, you have one of two decisions: you either see if it works or you break up.

It’s not always as easy as it sounds, though.

My boyfriend and I started dating two months before we graduated college. We were just going to “see where things went,” but when graduation rolled around, I had renewed my lease and taken a job in his hometown. I just wanted the summer.

Then one day I woke up and it was already August and he was leaving for law school in North Carolina. The day I had been dreading since March was finally there and I wasn’t sure I was ready. Ready for him to leave or ready to make this long distance relationship work.

When I was in high school, a doctor said I had depression and anxiety and after being medicated for several years, I was doing well. I knew what worked for me.

Three months into my employment and with him leaving for school, I knew the anxiety and depression would come to a head. I just didn’t know it would be so soon.

Law school is a huge commitment, especially when you’re attending one of the top 40 law schools in the country. I couldn’t have been more proud, but I couldn’t have been more anxious either.

Between his homework, classes, readings, my weekly-changing schedule, and my hourly commute to work and back, it was getting harder and harder as the weeks dragged on.

I made the trip to see him a couple weekends into the semester since I finally had a long weekend from work. Seeing him calmed my nerves and my anxiety, but they came back the second I pulled out of his apartment complex.

When I got home after visiting North Carolina for the first time, I could tell it was getting worse. With a new assignment section at work, I was taking on more than I had in my entire life. Then I realized that with all of the added stress of work, my medicine didn’t seem to be working as well as it had used to.

I found myself coming home from work and going immediately to bed. I stopped talking to my roommates for a while and created a lot of distance from the people that I normally would have wanted to keep close.

I needed a change. I couldn’t let this impact my job or my relationships. I wasn’t going to fall back into my old ways and that’s where I saw myself going. I didn’t know what else to do other than to call my doctor.

Let me tell you that nothing is worse than trying to figure out what medicine works for you. The helpless feeling of wanting to be okay, but emotionally and physically not being able to. The side effects. Can you handle the time it takes for the new medicine to kick in? Do you get too angry now? How is your concentration? Is it working? What do you do now?

I have never felt more paranoid than I did when I started my new medicine. I couldn’t tell if it was just kicking in and needed more time, or if this was one of the side-effects. I felt the inevitable helplessness that you do when you’re doing everything you think you can, but nothing works.

Three weeks. It was three weeks of talking on the phone every so often, only seeing his face on Snapchat, and trying to figure out when I could come to see him next.

I finally found time around Labor Day weekend. I had gotten the weekend and holiday off and decided to make the drive down after work on Friday night.

Again, the anxiety went away and I felt like I was at home. I think it was at this time when I realized I had other options. I had control over my anxiety. Why was I letting it control me?

When I got home I decided to continue with my new medication but I needed to make some other changes. I bought a gym membership and decided to raise my serotonin levels myself. I was going to take matters into my own hands.

I had always been told that working out would not only improve my physical health, but it would help with my mental health as well. Everyone was right.

It’s been a couple of weeks and I feel better than ever.

I’ll admit most of my anxiety near the end of the summer and at the beginning of his semester was a result of being in a failed long distance relationship previously, but after I got past that and I started to take control of my anxiety, I was able to eliminate most of that anxiety.

He came home this weekend and I’m thankful I only had to wait two weeks. I think the hardest thing about the long-distance is not that I have worries or I’m afraid he’ll leave, but that I miss him so much and I can’t see him when I’ve had a bad day at work or feel upset every now and then.

He works so hard and I am so proud to call him mine. He inspires me every day and makes me feel like I can do anything I set my mind to. Now that I’m taking control of my anxiety, I’m not afraid of this falling apart or getting messy, because I know we’ll make it. It’s what you do when you love someone.