Narrative Essay: An Explanation Of My Anxiety: Coming To Terms

Sierra Santschi

Mrs. Shanahan/CHELA

Narrative Essay

November, 2017 Coming to Terms

“You just need to get over it,” “Stop being so tense!” “You just need to relax,” “Why can’t you just be normal?” Those would probably be some of the most common phrases said to me throughout these last two and a half years of my life. I have anxiety, and it’s been really hard trying to come to terms with it and accept it for a part of who I am, and that I won’t ever get rid of it. The peak of my anxiety was during the summer of 2016 when I had quite a few bad experiences with my family, trying something new, and trying to handle an intensely dangerous situation alone as just an 11 year old, which really made it come out. It’s hard to put anxiety into

“You can’t do this, you’ll just get beaten down” or even

“Everyone hates you, they watch you make mistakes, ask stupid questions, act weird, they notice all of it and they think something is wrong with

In school there’s cliques, there’s bullies, there’s always going to be people that hate you and people that love you, but sometimes it’s hard to find who’s who, and on top of that, there’s additional stress around deadlines and assignments and balancing social stress and stress from assignments, on top of having anxiety is my own personal hell. It sometimes weighs me down so much that it’s hard for me to merely raise my hand in class to ask or answer a question, introduce myself to someone, give a presentation, whatever situation you can think of, my anxiety makes it worse by tenfold. It took me about four and a half weeks into sixth grade to find one of my best friends, which was a record time for me, and I was ecstatic. We had the same interests, we got along well, and she was in my social studies class and we sat together at lunch. Like all friendships, it was awkward at first, and I told her about my anxiety and it was like a door had opened up for me, she was understanding and really patient with me and learned about what works best for me really quickly, which is something I couldn’t be more grateful for. No one has been that supportive of me. I met so many people through her also, and I’ve become a little more easygoing than I was a year ago. My friend group is larger, however not by much, and I’m 100 percent okay with that now. I have a wonderful support system and I love all of them dearly. I still am absolutely terrible with