My mother had always said that I was anxious, even since I was in the womb. I was a C-Section baby because, well, I decided to flip around days before my actual due date, causing me to stay in there just three days past my due date. My mom says it was like I was trying to pro-long my stay in the safe comfy environment, where nothing could hurt me or get to me. I was safe there.

19 years later and it's still the same way. In fact, if it's possible, it's gotten just a little bit worse. My anxiety grew from fear of being in the car for prolonged periods of time to never actually leaving the house in fear that I was going to die in some freak accident. Of course, I didn't die, or else I wouldn't be here writing this article today. But that's exactly why I'm writing this article; to tell people my story of dealing with severe anxiety, almost debilitating, and how I'm working on getting over it.

With my anxiety, it started out small. As a little girl, I was scared to spend too much time in the car in fear that we might get hit by a tired, weary truck driver; if I was feeling ill, I would make myself stay up until one in the morning because I believe that nothing could go wrong after one in the morning. When "Santa" used to come to my grandparents house, I would sit with all my little cousins and my little sister in the basement, stomach knotting in fear and anxiousness that there was a strange man walking in our house, giving us gifts. When I got older and realized who "Santa" was, the anxiety still didn't go away. Instead, it was focused on keeping the children down in the basement and distracting them with stories and games so that they wouldn't sneak upstairs and find out the childhood ruining truth...

The anxiety didn't get better after that. After the little worries and small tics I had, it progressed into something more. When I hit middle school, every ailment I had always ended up being something much larger in my head. Headache? Brain tumor. Sore Throat? Throat Cancer. Stuffy Nose? A debilitating sinus infection that would leave me without the use of my nose forever. I would spend hours stressing over it, crying, and looking up my symptoms on a website, trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with me, because a simple headache or sore throat was just too simple in my mind.

As I got older, the anxiety got worse. Whenever we made plans like vacation, or something fun around town, I would spend a week, even a month in advance doing things like packing and making lists and making sure that everything was going to go according to plan. If one little detail was off, I would spin into a frenzy of 'how can I fix this?', 'What happens if it doesn't go right?', 'We're not going to have any fun unless it all goes according to plan.' It got so bad that it began to give me stomachaches and headaches. The pressure and worrying if everything was going to go right was slowly making me sick.

And I'm sure that you're thinking, "Oh surely it's going to get better! She's going to find a new and innovative way to deal with her anxiety and kick its butt!" And I really wish that was the truth. In fact, nothing got better. I got more anxious at the slightest thing. During a theatre performance at my high school, I got a bloody nose due to my anxiety. During my sophomore or junior year of high school, the side effects of my anxiety hit me right in the gut. Literally. If I got too overworked or anxious about something, I would spend at least 30 minutes keeled over the toilet, throwing up or dry heaving. When I broke up with my girlfriend and things didn't go as planned, I spent an hour in the bathroom, shaking and cold. I spent the rest of the night shivering and shuddering, my body literally fighting against itself at my reaction.

Finally, it came to a peak when I just wouldn't leave the house. At age 18, I was terrified to even get in my own car or step out my door in fear that I would die too young in some freak accident. I wouldn't leave, I wouldn't get in my car and drive my friends around (and it didn't help that months earlier I had gotten in a car accident that shook me to my core). I was stuck and helpless....

Now I'm 19 and I just finished my first year of college. I would love to say that I have my anxiety down to healthy levels, but that just won't happen. The good news is that I haven't gotten sick due to my anxiety in eight months, which actually a really high point in my life! I work on not getting overwhelmed by little sicknesses, I no longer get bloody noses, and the best part is that I'm happy again and I'm living life like there's no tomorrow. Of course, I still have my reservations about things I do, but I definitely am not afraid of death or dying anymore.

Dealing with anxiety is hard and it takes a lot of time, trust me. But it's so very worth it in the end. When you could step out your door and take a deep breath without worrying that you might die, you feel so much freer. And anxiety isn't your average bad guy. For me, my anxiety (at healthy levels) help keep me on track with homework, or trust my gut when it comes to things that I'm unsure of. Because of that nagging part in my brain, I'm more aware of my surrounding, I'm safer, I get things done assignments done ahead of time and look over them with every minute detail. Anxiety is almost like another person and that person has taught me some interesting lesson during my 19 years on this Earth. Some days, the anxiety is a friend rather than a foe. So, anxiety is simultaneously my superpower and my weakness and I'm thankful for it every day.