The Destruction That Made Me
By: Charlotte Cole
Trying to move through a crowd of hundreds would cause anyone to feel overwhelmed. Driving during rush hour may make someone feel a little more on edge, antsy even. Having to give an important presentation would make anyone nervous. Applying to a new job gives everyone the jitters.
Everyone deals with anxiety in their lives, whether or not it is day to day. But for those who are fortunate enough only to experience it when the situation calls for it, I’d call them lucky.
Waking up from a nightmare feeling phantom pain from where you had been injured or in a panic because you were sure you would look in the mirror and have no teeth left is not something that I would wish on anyone. No one should have to sit in a room with their friends playing games, unable to participate because their chest feels like it’s caving in on itself in pain, and they can’t explain why. It should not consume someone’s entire mind, focusing on the wording of their question during class before they ask it.
But it does. It happens all the time, every day, to everyone around you.
Unless you experience it, you may never be able to tell when someone is having a panic attack or is simply just anxious if they don’t tell you. Living with it constantly, every minute of every day, never knowing when it will hit you, forces you to hide how you react to it. And everyone handles it differently.
It took twenty-two years for me to be medically diagnosed with anxiety, among the multiple other mental illnesses I have more recently been diagnosed with, but I’ve been dealing with them for as long as I can remember, which is a pretty blurry bubble in my mind. I don’t have it nearly as bad as it could be – I know people who have it worse – but I’ve been told I need to stop minimizing my own problems.
I have never driven myself through a drive-thru before; I have never been able to call and order takeout. I can go inside and order my food over the counter, feeling the same way someone would feel when waiting for an important test result. But ordering the same meal through a car window or over the phone seems as impossible to me as growing feathers and flying.
I am incapable of telling someone my needs or wants or how I feel. If someone is making me uncomfortable, I know how to get out of the situation but cannot execute it. If someone has made me upset, I can’t tell them why without crying. If I need help, whether from a friend or a stranger, I will struggle to figure it out myself until I get too frustrated and just give up. Maybe I will try again, maybe I won’t. If I go to the store and can’t find what I need, I don’t go looking for an employee; I simply leave and hope I can find it online or wait until another opportunity presents itself to go back to the store and try again. If there is something I don’t understand in class, odds are I will do everything outside of asking the teacher for help until it starts to affect my grade.
The list could continue for hours, for pages. And majority of the actions I feel incapable of accomplishing because of this anxiety are things most people wouldn’t think twice about doing. And when new people in my life start to learn about these things, they think I’m joking, or they just simply can’t believe I am telling the truth.
If I had a quarter for every time someone told me something isn’t as hard as I make it sound, that I should just get over it, I’d be rich.
If I had a quarter for every time I was accused of being a liar, a poser…
Our society has been built around judgment, and if you don’t live the same life as the person next to you, it can be pretty hard to fathom. And when mental illnesses have been portrayed as being crazy for so long, it makes it even harder. And when so many people demand an explanation for why you are the way you are, not having one practically equates to you faking it for attention.
The only reason I now know where my mental illnesses stem from is because I was able to seek help through a therapist, and not nearly enough people have this luxury. And I would very much consider having a good therapist a luxury because she altered the course of my life for the better. But she wasn’t the first one I’ve seen; she’s just the only one who’s helped. But knowing the origin can only explain so far, and it can only be written off as an excuse so many times.
The cause of my anxiety at six years old is no longer the cause of my anxiety as a twenty-two-year-old, but the origins are still the same. And that is where the confusion sets in. Anxiety comes with stressors, but those are much more difficult to identify than the origin. I know exactly why I am the way I am, I could sit down and map it out for you if you asked, but even I don’t fully understand why I get anxious the way I do.
I could be having a good day, an easy day, but when I try to eat my dinner, I am incapable because I feel so anxious, I become nauseous, and most of the time, I have no idea why. And then, I get more anxious because I don’t understand why I was anxious in the first place. It creates this seemingly never-ending cycle that can be very difficult to get out of, which results in coping mechanisms. My therapist has directed me to fidget toys as a way to deal with my anxiety, and most of the time now, they work. But for the years of dealing with it on my own, I developed self-destructing habits, and after over a decade, they seem impossible to get rid of. And these habits have only made matters worse.
I know how my body tells me it’s anxious; I feel uncomfortable, I get fidgety, my stomach hurts, my chest hurts, I pull out my eyebrows or eyelashes, I pick my scalp till it bleeds. I know when I get anxious: in crowds, when I don’t know anyone, in class, at meals, in bed, when I’m asleep, when I’m awake. I may not be anxious one minute, but I can be the next, and then I could be fine the minute after.
If I’m alone, despite years of trying to fix it, I fall back into my rut, and if we were in AA, I’d have all my chips taken back every few weeks. And it sucks. It hurts knowing that one small action can set your progress back weeks, and it’s hard to force yourself not to look at it that way. But you are growing, and you need room to make mistakes. Growth isn’t always positive, and sometimes, you have to take three steps back in order to get on the right path. And if, in those three steps, you make a mistake, even if no one else forgives you, you have to forgive yourself, or you will never be able to take another step forward.
I sleep until 1 p.m. almost every day, unless I have to get up for something. Do I like doing this? No, I hate it. When I wake up and see the time, all I do is get mad at myself because I have once again wasted half my day. If I could wake up at a decent hour and get out of bed, I would. I try so hard every single day to get myself out of bed when my alarms go off, but my body fights harder than anyone I know. No matter how much I want to get up, if I still feel at all tired, I will just roll over and fall back asleep. Everyone tells me to go to sleep earlier and just get up anyway; it’s not that hard. If only it were that easy.
Nothing is easy with anxiety. Absolutely nothing. Even if it’s a normal, mundane, everyday activity, if something’s off, your anxiety will find it and attack. My hands are still wet after washing them? I can’t leave until they’re dry or the ceiling will fall down. It’s warm and I’m wearing rings but my fingers start to swell? If those rings feel even a touch stuck, if they’re not off in the next two seconds, it will feel like World War Three has started. We’re going somewhere and there’s a person I know won’t really like me? I could throw up; I’ll do anything not to go. If I’m the designated driver for anything, if I don’t know exactly where I’m allowed to park, it will be the most stressful drive of my life, regardless if I’ve been there or not.
No matter what I tell myself, my anxiety always feels like it wins. I always try to stick it out, whether that be staying where I am, staying around people I feel comfortable with, or finding something to distract myself with. But I’ll still be anxious. It could last for minutes, and then I’ll feel good again, or it could last until I fall asleep, and even then, sometimes, it lasts until the morning. No matter how I handle it, the anxiety always seems to be one step ahead.
As I’ve become more accepting of my anxiety, I’ve started talking about it more with the people in my life. Get me into a really deep conversation, and I’ll spill my whole life story on you if you don’t stop me. It’s not all that pretty. Not everyone wants to hear these stories, and I know that, but sometimes you just have to talk about it and get it off your chest. Sometimes, it’s the only way to feel better, knowing you’re not alone, even if you are.
The responses I get from these conversations always intrigue me. A lot of people will just take pity on you, tell you that you shouldn’t have had to go through that, that it wasn’t fair. And I’ll agree, it wasn’t fair, but it happened, and there’s nothing I can do now.
My favorite response was from my ex-boyfriend; he told me I was the strongest person he knew. He didn’t have a great childhood either; he had to grow up way too soon to be there for his younger brother during his parents’ divorce. My parents never got divorced, and I don’t have any siblings. Yet I was still the stronger one. I didn’t have a reply at the time because no one had ever said that to me. I didn’t see myself as strong because I would shut down anytime something didn’t go my way because I didn’t know how to handle it. I’d avoid confrontation all the time because of how things were handled when I was a child. I have the worst communication skills possible, just outside of not talking at all. But he didn’t see that. He saw a girl who had to grow up alone and take care of herself in situations she never should have been put in. She may not have handled it in the best way, but she handled it the best way she knew how. And she grew up, and she kept fighting, even if no one else saw. But he did. And he made sure I knew time and again how strong I was for going through what I did and never giving up, no matter how badly I wanted to.
I wish now I could tell him ‘thank you.’
It was exactly what I needed to hear.
If I could travel back in time and change the way I was raised, even if it ensured I would grow up without these struggles, I’m not sure I would change anything. Yes, I would have been able to spend every birthday with my father. I wouldn’t have to worry he’d come home and break something. I wouldn’t be so scared to live inside my house that I’d start hurting myself as a distraction when I didn’t even know what hurting myself meant.
If I could go back and change my childhood, I would not be the person I am today. I would not be studying the same thing or attending the same school. I wouldn’t have played the same sports growing up. I probably wouldn’t still live in my childhood home. But the most important aspect is that I wouldn’t have my friends.
I have four of the same friends I have had since kindergarten, and they are my rock. We don’t see each other that often anymore, but when we do, nothing else in the world exists. It is just them and me in our own little bubble.
And the friends I’ve made in college? They have helped me in more ways than I could ever thank them for. Without them, I would not have made it through one of the toughest years of my life; they were all I had. And they understand me. We can be out having the time of our lives, but if one of us is even a little anxious? Nothing else matters until we make sure that person is okay, and if they need to leave, we leave with them. When one of us accomplishes something, like passing an exam or successfully giving an important presentation, or just simply showering, we celebrate it like we would a graduation. Because they understand how it feels to live with anxiety, with depression.
I would give anything to be able to go up to people I think would be fun to talk to and actually talk to them, not worry that they’ll think I’m some sort of freak and never bother trying. I would love to be able to ask a professor for help in front of the entire class and not feel as though everyone is watching and waiting for me to say the wrong thing. I would give up whatever I had if it meant I could communicate how I feel without breaking down because I’m terrified they’ll yell or scream or get mad when I know they won’t.
But if I went back in time and changed the past, I would regret it. Anxiety makes my life difficult, and I do hate it. I dream every day that it could be different. But if I went back and changed everything because I am ashamed of who I am, what does that say about me? There are days I would give anything to live in a different body, but I’d never go through with it because I wouldn’t be me.
And that has become so important to me.
I cherish the way I look at life, and because of that, I am grateful to have lived the life I have been given, even if it means I will be sick for the rest of it.
Charlotte Cole is a recent graduate of Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, where she studied Forensic Science and Creative Writing. Toward the end of her college career she decided writing was the best path for her as she discovered her passion for it. She is not only excited to share her writing with the world but also to help others deal with and understand their mental health.
