One of my favorite quotes comes from a book by Nicholas Sparks. It goes: “In the blink of an eye, something happens by chance—when you least expect it—sets you on a course that you never planned, into a future you never imagined.” Now, if you have read the book you would know it is a quote from "The Lucky One." And if you know me well enough you would know that I am a hopeless romantic, nothing fascinates me more than the idea of true love. Well this has been true my whole life ever since I was a child. I loved the idea of having prince charming come save me, but over time this idea changed a bit. Still convinced that love at first sight was real, I went on a search for true love. But this proved to be difficult, I had dreamt up the perfect guys, somewhat like these men from the movies, loving, caring and willing to sacrifice absolutely everything for the girl they were in love with and I would imagine how amazing my life would be someday.
I searched all over high school looking for a guy like those in Nicholas Sparks books, willing to be with me regardless of my many flaws, and that we would get married and live a happy life. Again, this was difficult I couldn’t find the guy to meet my standards. I looked and looked and when I finally found one that I thought might be the one I was proved wrong. Cheated on, lied to and broken that is how relationships left me. The idea that true love existed soon began to fade, every time I gave someone a little bit of trust I was given enough reasons to not trust anyone ever again. These feeling were soon replaced by fear, the fear that no one could ever love me, that I could not trust anyone because at the end of the day they would hurt me and betray me the way that I had been betrayed before.
The reality was that I soon began to hide within myself and avoided any relationship that I felt was going to end in heartbreak I did everything to not date anyone for the rest of my high school years, that was after one relationship. I told myself that it was for the best and that I would thank myself for doing this, instead I focused on building relationship with friends, I made friends with everyone I could because the idea of being alone scared me. What scared me even more was the inability to feel good being myself I felt that I would only get sadder if I was alone and I didn’t want to be sad. I wanted to be happy and the only way that I felt that was surrounding myself with great people like my friends (which wasn’t a bad thing.) but after leaving high school this became difficult because I didn’t have many friends coming into Saint Xavier and my friends back home weren’t there anymore, we all became busy with life and school.
I began to have trouble at school and would spend most of my time at Saint Xavier locked in my dorm, my first semester slipping away, after this I had a very close friend to me suggest I go to counseling, where they told me that i was not only bipolar but that I had anxiety. I didn’t know that anxiety could manifest itself in many different ways not wanting to be alone, being unable to build relationships because the fear of being hurt was greater than the ability to want to socialize and make friends. I continued my counseling for a year and few months and when i finally came out of it i realize that anxiety is a tricky thing in relationships, we want reassurance, we want to be sure that in any moment this person could walk away leaving you broken, unable to breathe, feeling you could fall apart any minute, mostly people with anxiety want to be able to look at a person and find safety, find solace and comfort.
It is difficult to be in a relationship with someone who has anxiety, for me is was finding stability in a world that had been crazy for a long time, was being able to look at someone and be able to not worry about them walking away without explanation, without the worry that something could change someday. That one minute things will be okay and the next everything i thought was okay really wasn’t and I would end up getting hurt again. Anxiety or at least my anxiety has made it hard for me to start a healthy relationship, but I have learned what I need in order for me to have the relationship i have always wanted.
