On Getting Help (Or, Stuff That Can Happen in a Year...)

I don't talk about my feelings.

It's not the model I was raised with. That's not a slam on my parents, whom I love very much and who I know love me, just an observation. I was with my dad and one of my sisters recently, and he commented that my niece and nephew make him feel like he's on his death bed because of how much they say, "I love you." My sister turned to me and said, "Now we know why we're so uncomfortable expressing that." It's true: we're an emotionally reserved family.

I had my first panic attack just after my fifteenth birthday - 'cause, I mean, what do you get the girl who has everything? It was mid-November. I was a sophomore in high school and it was the night of one of the performances of our fall show. In a freak accident, a friend of mine had been injured during one of her scenes. Most of us had been down in the greenroom when it happened and didn't find out about it until we were about to go onstage for the finale. Adrenaline pushed me through the curtain call, but when I got back downstairs, the room felt like it was crushing me. I was hot, my heart was racing, everything sounded like I was underwater but I felt like I was on fire, and I couldn't breathe.

And I don't talk about this in detail. Really. Ever. I'll say, "I had a panic attack," and move on. Typing all of those words just now made me ridiculously uncomfortable. So forgive the lack of eloquence that may occur as we progress, because I don't know that I'll be able to go back and make adjustments.

The anxiety storm that led to this first explosion had been building since September, something that I touched upon here. My brain's inability to process that didn't absolve it of the need to do so, and I think that this incident - this chance occurrence of injury being done to someone in my life (obviously - and thankfully - with much less lethal stakes) pulled every thought and feeling and worry that had been spinning silently in my head for months together into a single ball of awfulness that I couldn't contain anymore.

It's not my friend's fault that it happened. I don't think I ever actually told her that. We're not really in touch anymore, and I'm sure she knows it, but it absolutely wasn't her fault. If it hadn't happened then, it would've happened another time for some other reason.

Fifteen. That was my introduction to my issues with anxiety and depression, but I didn't feel I was allowed to take ownership of those words. It wasn't because of the stigma that's so often and so unfairly attached to them. Naively, I thought that because I hadn't reached an extreme - because I wasn't suicidal or afraid to leave my house - I didn't have the right to say I was depressed or anxious. Which was dumb. But we're all dumb sometimes, and I didn't know how to ask for help yet.

I'm going to make a long story slightly shorter: it was a long, long time before I figured out how to ask for help.