It's a hard thing to hear about, so I understand if you feel the need to put your electronic device down and prepare yourself a little bit before reading on.

Disclaimer: This is my experience and is by no means universal for everyone with anxiety. Although these may be helpful to some if you are confused, hurting, or even curious.

I was diagnosed with anxiety and minor depression in fall 2015. I have only been on medication for a year, and it has been quite the experience. There has been a little playing around with getting the medication to the right dosage and getting the right mix of meds to make me feel like I used to.

Here's what I've learned from "playing" with the meds:

1) Part of my anxiety comes from constant thinking. It's possible to not have a thought or noise run through your head and I didn't know what that was like. It's actually wonderful.

2) Just because it works for one person, doesn't mean it works for everyone. The medications someone with anxiety and/or depression receive is to help alter the chemicals in their brain.

3) I am still constantly amazed by who has stuck by my side, and who hasn't. As I stated earlier, it's a hard thing to talk about, but it's just as hard to hear. When telling family, I can see their heart break a little when it's brought up. When talking about it with friends, suddenly everything is thin ice and I am a fragile little porcelain doll. Which is only sometimes true. If I'm talking about it, generally that means that I am ok with bringing it up. If it is brought up by someone who I don't know if I can trust just yet, that's when I freak out.

My anxiety really kicked itself into gear when I re-entered an abusive relationship last year. It took getting out of the relationship (again) to really realize how much help I needed. I had relied on him for everything, calming me down, being my reason to get out of bed, and even to be there to walk me to class. That wasn't fair for him, although that doesn't warrant abusive and manipulative behavior. I had placed my entire existence around this one person who was one of the main causes of my anxiety and depression, so when he left I felt like I actually had nothing left of myself.

While on meds, I actually have "found myself" again. It's a weird thing to think about, the fact that maybe I really wasn't a person there for a while, at least, I didn't feel like one. I stayed in bed, skipped all my classes, slept at least 18 hours a day, and only cared enough about my grades to have panic attacks about them. It took my mom calling my sister who forced me to go to a doctor to finally get the help I needed. I needed to talk to someone about my experiences and how an abusive relationship was not my fault. I also needed to have someone reassure me that I had no control over how the chemicals were made in my brain.

If you talk to me now, I ask for help all the time. And about everything. Everything from homework to relationships to anxiety to anything you can think of. It's been a long journey, and I've a learned a lot about myself and how to deal with this big scary world. I'm still learning and I'm still healing but by golly I know I'm doing better. That's what has saved me these last few months. A favorite quote of mine from a video of Will Hillborn that's been floating around is, "I think a lot about killing myself. Not like a point on a map, but rather like a glowing exit sign at a show that's never been quite bad enough to make me wanna leave."

It's a little morbid, I know, but it's so true. I'm past those thoughts now, I've stuck around for the show and my God, it's turned out to be the best one I've ever seen. I know people have had it worse than me and also better than me, but that doesn't mean that I can't be happy. I deserve happiness. Everyone does. And I've found that. I found it past my anxiety, past my depression, and in my family and friends and the happiness they bring me and I bring them.

The reason that I put my family dog as my cover photo is because of how much he helped me. It's such a cliché thing to say, I know. But he's a very peculiar dog who doesn't like to be cuddled or pet, but he always knew when to come give me some lovin' on my especially hard days.

I am in such a good place now, and I wouldn't change anything. Well, maybe I would put in some more practice on my instruments, but that's an easy fix.