I’ve been working since I was 18, and every job I have had since has been related to customer service in some way. For the past two years, I have held the same job in a very intense and fast-paced customer service position. From insane Saturday afternoon shifts that literally never ease up to disgruntled and sometimes mean customers to the added pressure that comes from working as an integral part of a team, my job has sometimes been hell for my anxiety.

I first developed anxiety when I was sixteen and it was terrifying. As time went on, I learned how to manage it and live with it. I threw myself for a loop when I took my current job because it was so different from any job I’d held before. In many ways, I wasn’t prepared for how it would affect me emotionally. But it’s also been a tremendous learning experience and I have grown so much in the past two years. As hard as it gets sometimes, I am grateful for every instance that has tested me and taught me how to better handle my mental illness. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

When I first got hired, my job wasn’t nearly as intense as it is today, but as I continued training and moving up the ladder, my responsibilities increased and therefore, so did my stress levels. For a while, I refused to tell anyone that I lived with severe anxiety. I didn’t want anyone to treat me differently. Work was the only place in my life where nobody knew that I had it. I didn’t want people to coddle me or think I wasn’t capable of working just as hard as everyone else.

After about a year, I would start to casually mention that certain tasks made me nervous and of course, people just brushed it off. They told me I didn’t need to be nervous and that everyone in the store was there to support me if I needed help, all of which I knew, but it still didn’t have the affect I was hoping for.

It wasn’t until I had an actual panic attack at work that I decided I needed to be way more vocal about what I was going through. I remember feeling very overwhelmed by the noise that afternoon and feeling intense claustrophobia, which is one of my main triggers. I remember not being able to speak. I remember turning around to see one of my managers who asked if I was okay. I remember simply shaking my head and him telling me I could go sit in the locker room while I calmed down. He brought me water and checked on me until I was ready to come back up. It was scary and intense and embarrassing, and the worst part for me was that my secret was out.

Following that panic attack, things at work got a lot better. My managers encouraged me to talk to them and to not be afraid to express to them when I needed help or needed to rotate positions. For the longest time, I was afraid to tell people at work that I had anxiety because I didn’t want to seem weak. But knowing that people were on my side and gave me a little more control over how I worked made me feel empowered. It made me realize yet again that I am not alone in this battle. Letting people in does not show weakness.

Now, even though people are treating me differently now that they know what I deal with on a daily basis, I don’t feel coddled or treated as less for my mental illness. I feel stronger and I feel much more in control of myself. Asking for help with your mental illness is a huge step, and unfortunately one of the hardest steps of the mental health journey. Just know that you are not alone. If you’re in the right place, people want to help you. They want to be there for you in whatever capacity you need them to be. You just have to tell them what that is.