The Waiting Room

So I'm sitting in this room, waiting for the inevitable.

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - but unfortunately it's very, very real.

For me, the anxiety started in Grade 3, but the attacks didn't get bad until my second year of college. Of I course was scared. The first time I couldn't catch my breath, I thought I was going to die. My heart was in my throat, restricting the breath that tried so desperately to get to my lungs and my eyes began to water. My skin began to tingle until it eventually went numb and my muscles began to tighten to the point I was in unbearable pain.

I had no idea what was happening. One minute I was being told I had to double up my assignments, and the next I was standing outside in the cold behind a building trying to figure out how to get my breath back.

It was like wearing a fuzzy, itchy sweater that was 5 sizes too tight.

This is the beginning of the struggle.

Coming out of the attack was like waking from a corpse of who I was. I was now part of a statistic that suffers from regular anxiety attacks.

Anxiety disorders affect 5% of the household population, causing mild to severe impairment.

For years following, I told no one. The only people who knew were the ones who accidentally witnessed my attacks. Ultimately however, I tried to keep it to myself - bottling everything up until I was alone in my room. But anxiety is the monster that cannot be tamed alone. When it wants to, it will unlatch the lock on it's cage and come at you with teeth pressed and claws out.

And up until now, I have been a part of the 49 per cent of people who feel they have suffered from depression or anxiety and have never gone to see a doctor about the problem.

So now, I'm here. Two years later, in that ugly as sin waiting room - waiting for my name to be called.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself - you need help."

I had help - I had equine therapy my entire life, then I lost it. I lost my anchor to my sanity. 21 years old and I'm being told I need help. Help with what? Help with learning to control my mind? Something I've lived with for so long is now suddenly a problem, because I lost my solution.

Keep it together, get through today - tell the doctor it's really no big deal, you're fine - you've been fine this whole time. It can only get better from here.

"Hailey Trealout?"

I stand and walk towards the open door - towards what I deemed 'the inevitable'.

Now, Here I am - hooked up to a heart monitor with an official diagnosis.

Severe General Anxiety.

I knew I had it, but hearing it come from the lips of an official made it too real. My heart monitor records my reaction. My skin shakes beneath it's sticky grasp and I struggle to keep it together.

My therapist wants me to cry when I need it. But I am conditioned to be strong. Though I have the support from friends and family, who all now know I am struggling with something deeper than what I have let them see.

I was recovering, and was set back by the death of someone who brought me here, to this point in my life. I'm lost - struggling to be found.

"What are you doing for you?" asks my therapist.

I have you guys.

I have my True Reflections family who are keeping me grounded in the safest place on the planet. You are part of my recovery, you are part of my new life. I have you, just like you have me.

You don't have to suffer from anxiety to be here; that is just my story. You can hate your freckles, be a man who loves wearing women's clothes, have a history of being bullied, be socially awkward or have blue skin.

True Reflections, like I've said before is a safe place, it is a community of people helping people. You are a part of a family that loves you.

Keep thinking you can, little engine.

You Matter, You Are Enough.

Statistics from http://www.cmha.ca/media/fast-facts-about-mental-illness/#.VPIDy_nF-b9