In all twenty two years of my life I have experienced symptoms and signs of being an anxious person. I was a very shy child who was upset easily. At seventeen my mom decided we were going to move for the 4th time in my life. I was finishing my Sophomore year of high school. I had finally became semi comfortable in my skin. Moving was not something I wanted. I didn’t want to start at a new school again. I had just stopped being bullied and people were just letting me be myself. I feared moving to a new school because I didn’t want to be bullied again.
When that summer ended and the new school year began I got physically ill. I had extreme stomach pains everyday in the morning and threw up nearly every morning after trying to eat. This is before I was officially diagnosed with anxiety, but this was the beginning of hitting rock bottom. I lost a lot of weight within a couple months and that really worried my mom so that led to going to the doctors. My doctor at the time thought maybe I had gallbladder issues, maybe my kidney, maybe this or that. She really didn’t know so that led to a lot of lab work. I had my blood tested. Nothing came back to provide any information for why I was so ill all the time. Then I had ultrasounds and everything in those appeared normal. I began to get frustrated because I didn’t understand why I felt the way I did. I didn’t understand that my feelings and thoughts were anxiety related. I didn’t have any knowledge of what anxiety was so I couldn’t really help my doctor at all. I had an X-ray test done of my whole stomach and intestines to see if there was anything wrong there. They make you drink barium which is a very nasty white liquid. I gagged and got to see the X-ray of that which was the only cool thing of the experience. That test led to no results and my doctor assumed maybe I had developed ulcers in my stomach but I would need to be scoped to be sure.
While I was seeing the doctor I was barley going to school. When I did go I was being bullied to the extreme. The girl who was bullying me almost ran me over with her car. She was following me home and threatening my life. I was truly scared and as it got worse I became more ill. Then the panic attack hit. I had panic attacks in the past when I was much younger but never really knew what they were.
The “Ah Ha” moment happened for my doctor when my mom explained that I was also now having panic attacks. My anxiety was so out of control. It caused ulcers to develop in my stomach leading to an inability to eat, and throwing up often. My doctor explained to me that anxiety often shows itself in the stomach. She said “that butterfly feeling that people get when they are nervous is a form of normal anxiety.” She then explained the anxiety I was having was extreme and that she believed medication and therapy were my best options for having a normal life and ultimately feeling better. She gave me the official diagnosis of GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder).
I was given a medication, a therapist recommendation, and put on a very bland diet to follow. It took me about a year after all of this to be able to eat without getting ill every time. In therapy the diagnosis of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) was uncovered and then in later years the diagnosis of Depression came along.
Today I am still on medication, and still in therapy exploring all the aspects of my anxiety disorders and depression. My life isn’t “normal” and I still get sick after eating sometimes, but at least I am living a less painful life.