In my life, I have experienced many challenges, and they have shaped me to become who I am today. From my experiences with paralyzing anxiety, I tell the unique story of God’s shalom. I have struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of me experiencing an event that was traumatic. These events caused me serious mental and emotional turmoil. My anxiety would “kick in” randomly in my everyday life, from going to bed, to even just meeting new people. I am a sensitive person, so the anxiety I developed was intensified thanks to my impressionable emotions.
My anxiety first grew into something more than just nervous energy in grade four when I was homeschooled. I would cry every time my mom had to leave
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Entering high school I was faced with new obstacles and situations that I didn’t quite prepare myself for. The subjects were harder, the halls were louder, and I was presented with a lot of “firsts”. As grade seven was nearing it’s end, I was stepping into one of the most difficult times in my life. As I said before, my emotions were quite impressionable, so after watching a show I probably shouldn’t have, I couldn’t sleep or be alone without having an anxiety attack. With loud noises everywhere, the stress of school and managing friends, my mind was running on my flight or fight part of my brain (my amygdala) and I would just melt down. After many strenuous months of me melting down, my parents sought out counselling for me. I saw a psychotherapist (using EMDR), a pediatrician, a naturopath, and a counsellor at the youth center all during my seventh to ninth grade. They all helped to teach me the tools to control and refocus my anxiety. I grew so much over those years and to my surprise was able to go to Mexico with my grade nine class, when I said for years that I was never going. After that trip I changed, my whole way of processing the situations around me became clear and not cloudy with anxiety (to the extent of how I had been).
Anxiety is only one part of my life, but through the experiences I faced I can say that my story is of God’s shalom. I still struggle with anxiety today and to be honest writing out my story made me relive some anxious feelings. However, I can see where I’ve been compared to where I am now, and that is a reassuring thought about how I’ve grown. I’ve not only grown mentally and emotionally from my past, but it has turned me even more so towards
Whenever I learned to trust and turn to God, I found His comfort to satisfy my soul. Almost two years ago, one of my best friends became extremely ill and had to leave home and go to a treatment clinic. (For her privacy, I will not say the illness). She had to immediately leave for she was due to die in two weeks if she did not find help. Whenever she told me the news, my whole world flipped upside down. My life had been pretty okay before this, just a few ups and downs. This was the first major trial in my life and I was not prepared. Of course, I prayed for her but I did not grasp the fact that God was going to save her. I was extremely emotionally unstable and I tried to fix myself on my own. This never worked, I may have had temporarily relief but the fear came back. One day I finally gave up trying to fix myself and turned to God. I asked Him to forgive me for not turning to Him first and I allowed him to fix me. I placed my trust in him and ran to him for comfort. Even when it was difficult, I knew I had to trust in Him. Once I placed my faith in Him, my comfort came. I had faith that He would heal her and she will not
I felt I had managed my anxiety, however I didn 't see that it was starting to affect my school work in other ways. My classmates were reading books and their vocabulary was rapidly expanding while I was stuck in my metaphorical happy place. I was essentially being left behind. With my vocabulary lacking I started getting worse grades on reports and general class work. Just like reading I started to avoid writing papers and using atypical words. When it came time to turn things in there was always an excuse, I resented writing papers and in the rare event that I did turn something in it was always rushed and incomplete. I would eventually get these rushed papers back, it felt like the teacher matched me word for word with corrections as if she was trying to compete with me on my own
There is the Emotional concerns: these are Sadness, depression, hopelessness, Tired, lack of energy, Decrease in motivation, Isolation, loneliness, Irritability, hostility, anger, Feelings of worthlessness, and Relationship concerns. There are Stress and Anxiety concerns: these are Fear, anxiousness, Panic attacks, Stress, worry, Unwanted intrusive thoughts, Restlessness, Shyness, and social anxiety. Lastly there are Thinking concerns, students who have these concerns have trouble remembering and concentrating. The most scary part in this knowing of the psychological concerns is that I have gone through and still going through emotional and stress/anxiety symptoms. In high school I went through some major family problems that cause me to go through depression. With these depression symptoms I developed anxiety, but I have gone through every single concerns in these two
For twelve years I’ve tried to hide my pain and fear from you. I’ve been trying to ignore the horror stories, unknowingly blinding myself from the stories of hope. I’m not as bitter as this story may lead you to think. In fact, I am an adamant believer in the statement (overheard three years ago in the Coffee House): “God has never taken anything away from me that he hasn’t replaced with something better.”
One should see anxiety as an opportunity to grow. One can accomplish so much when they face their fears. Phil Hansen, James Collier and I had to overcome an obstacle and because we overcame our obstacle we were able to do what we wanted to do. One can’t simply use their anxiety and fears as an excuse to back away from situations. Anxiety is just another name for challenge. One can take the challenge and overcome his fears. One can’t simply let anxiety control him, their fears scare them and their obstacles get in their way and still expect positive outcomes. One will never eliminate his anxiety and fears by avoiding what caused
Headley, C., & Campbell, M. A. (2013). Teachers’ knowledge of anxiety and identification of excessive anxiety in children. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(5).
my daughter. I now wonder if she will suffer as I have. I don’t want that to happen, so I have decided to find out exactly what anxiety is, who it affects, and what can be done about it. I want to be able to offer the information to Abby if she ever needs it. I want to know if the medications are as bad as they say. Is anxiety a mind game that only you can control? Well lets look at some of my family members and find out.
Current epidemiological data suggest anxiety disorders are the most prevalent type of childhood psychological disorders. Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD is described by excessive worrying about a variety of events, including those in the past, present, and future. Children with this disorder worry excessively about a number of issues, including past conversations or actions, upcoming events, school, family health, their own health, competence in sports or academics, and world events. Typically, children experiencing such excessive worry find it difficult to control the amount of time that they worry, and the worrying interferes in their daily life. Sometimes children don’t realize their anxiety is excessive considering the situation. Worries, doubts, and fears are a normal part of life. It’s natural to be anxious about your upcoming test or to worry about future plans after graduating from high school. The difference between “normal” worrying and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is that the worrying involved in GAD is the student can have thoughts that are excessive, persistent or debilitating. For most children, anxiety is a common and can be a functional, everyday part of life. But for some children in our schools anxiety may be intense and cause significant disruptions in normal social and academic development (Storch 2005).
I started out having these nights where I couldn't fall asleep all night and would freak out. When I would freak out and I would not pe able to control my body. My brain would just be everywhere and I couldn't concentrate on anything.It would happen every night.After about three weeks of the same thing happening over and over my mom finally brought me to the doctor.I had to explain what was everything that was going on with every single detail.My doctor brought me to a counselor. She signed me up for counseling, so I started counseling every single tuesday and every other thursday.I was going for around 3 hours a week. It felt really nice to talk to someone who genuinely understood and got what I was going through.She told me I had Panic attack disorder and intense anxiety.I got put on medication. I didn't really want to be on medication and I wanted to learn how to handle and deal with a panic attack by myself. I learned meditation strategies and different ways to cope with having a Panic attack or if I felt an anxiety attack. Coming on. I had a growth mindset by having to face the challenge of dealing with panic attack and anxiety.I really learned a lot about myself and what i am capable of doing on my own.I had the perseverance of wanting to know what to do and trying as hard as I could when i really did feel
I cried quietly to myself, hoping not to wake anyone so that I didn't bother my family, and I cried. I remember wondering why he of all people had to die and wondering how I would be able to deal with my grief. Later that week, I ended up dealing my grief in one of the worst possible ways, and that's just ignoring it. Every time I felt like crying, I’d tell myself that there wasn't anything to cry about, every time I felt angry, I’d ignore it and read a book. Every time I felt something from my grief, I’d ignore it, and that resulted in Anxiety attacks. I don’t think words can describe how bad anxiety attacks really are. Nothing can truly describe what you feel like when you get an anxiety attack. You feel like crying, you freak out, and you feel a bit short of breath, and that doesn't even begin to describe fully what an anxiety attack feels like. But me being the person I am, dealt with my anxiety attacks alone, telling myself, “Everything is fine, and everything will be okay. Just ride out the anxiety attack and then go to sleep. Sleep will calm you down.” And in a way, it
All my life since I can remember I've been considered shy by friends and family. I knew that I was not the most talkative kid and got nervous a lot ,but I had my many reasons. I've always hated having attention on me and feel like throwing up every time I've been around a lot of people. Most times I avoid being in public places as much as I can. Growing up though it was hard to avoid them because of people around me not understanding me or not wanting to understand me.
I still remember walking into the psychiatric’s office at about 8:30 am for a regular appointment when I first discovered I had depression and anxiety. So, this is how I’m learning to deal with it which kind of threw me off because I never thought I’d be someone dealing with depression and anxiety.
After reflecting on the results of my personal and spiritual inventory, I discovered it provided opportunity to narrow in on the significant experiences I have had with the Lord. Throughout this process I realized I have allowed the nature of my circumstances to distract my ability to sometimes see all the blessings God has given me in situations. Though my background restrained me from properly knowing God, I have opportunity today to meditate on how to accept the past and seek blessing. Psalm 119:15 says, “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.” (English Standard Version) The significant experiences have lead me to develop meaningful discernment of how to trust that God's blessings are everywhere. Even though blessings can be difficult to pinpoint in situations, maintaining faith, trust and wisdom to the circumstances will
In “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name”, James Lincoln Collier claims that anxiety is another name for challenge and presents his personal experiences and rules to support this. The first rule is “do what makes you anxious; don’t do what makes you depressed” (Collier). When he was approaching to graduate in college, he started to consider about being a writer. Anxiety of failure or making the wrong decision arose in his mind; he was scared whether he would be able to live by writing or not. However, depression appeared in his mind each time he thought about giving up the idea of being a writer because it was a desire from deep inside his mind. He realized that people confront anxiety when they passionately desire something. The second rule is “you’ll never eliminate anxiety by avoiding the things that caused it” (Collier). After the author started his career as a writer, he had to meet famous people frequently. He was very anxious before each interview with the famous people. However, his anxiety of meeting them has diminished eventually; his repetition of provoking anxiety had given him confidence ...
Anxiety is a topic that is important to my life, because it has been major part of it for a very long time. I have suffered from anxiety since I was in middle school, and while I eventually received the medicine I needed to cope with it, I wondered if there was anything my parents could have done to prevent it. It wasn’t until high school that I was finally diagnosed, even though I had extreme symptoms. This is because anxiety is considered a “silent disorder.” This means that parents can’t always tell their child is experiencing anxiety because there is nothing physically wrong with them that you can actually see. Also, many of the symptoms of an anxiety disorder can be mistaken for something else, such as: shyness, hormones, or just plain