I Have Danced the Tango with Anxiety

Closets. My favourite place as a child were closets. I’m not sure if it was the guaranteed serenity and quiet, a blockade from everything that upset me beyond those thick wooden doors, or if it was the smell. The smell of my father’s wool coat or my aunt’s perfume, I probably had compiled them all into an ‘Eau de Comfort’.

I could pinpoint exactly the first time I experienced anxiety. I can tell you my last panic attack too.

It was 2006, and my aunt had just gotten married. I was too young to understand love, and the commonalities of marriage. You move in together, you start a shared life, but I guess nobody had told me that marriage also entailed my aunt moving out of our shared bedroom, the four pink walls decorated with shelves of Barbies and princess stickers. When I think of that room, I think of my aunt singing me to sleep, I think of her perfumes on my dresser, the room smelling like a new one each day. I think of the ballet ‘recitals’ I would perform for her, I remember her brushing my brown hair, the ponytail I would wince at but never cry because I never wanted to upset her.

But while I cherished our little world within my pink utopia, I did not anticipate the day she would leave, for good. I could not cope with being in that room without her, and for years that followed, I would experience a form of separation anxiety each time she’d leave us after a visit. In fact, each time she would leave, I would sit in my closet. It was the only place in the world that I could cry freely, and maybe it was so dark that I could create a world out of my own imagination. One where my aunt and I would dance around the room, with the scent of her perfume lingering behind us like a shadow.

As my father continued to travel for business, I would hide in his closet from time to time to imagine he was home. I could cry about his absence in there, but it somehow felt as if he was right beside me. Both my aunt and father coming and going made me feel uneasy about goodbyes. I would panic each time I anticipated one.

Although my separation anxiety improved as I got older, I could not overcome social anxiety as easily. As a naturally shy kid, people around me were accustomed to giving me a small ‘push’ to integrate into groups. But when I didn’t ‘budge’, I simply wouldn’t. The proof was in a kickball game I cried not to play in. I knew everyone would laugh at me because I couldn’t kick far, but I think the fact that a camp counselor had to escort me to each base because I refused to go up alone was probably worse.

I did not feel anxious in all social situations though. When I was at film camp or in Social Studies class, I knew my strengths and how they benefitted the group. If people sang my praises, I did not find a need to be anxious. In fact, when I think of the situations which had caused me the most social anxiety, they were probably in sports teams. It was when my worth was questioned.

Throughout middle school and high school, my panic attacks came from a bad grade or a fight with my parents. I could count three fights where I was described as a ‘disappointment’, which was enough to spiral me. Luckily, high school was a smooth ride for me, and I probably only experienced 3 panic attacks in 4 years.

Perhaps it was the ease of high school that caused me to neglect my anxiety. I still experienced it at full force, but I thought that ‘everyone’ was going through it at the same level as me. I did not realize that my ‘coping’ mechanisms such as picking my lip and digging my nails into my skin were normal. I thought that crying because I feared rejection or due to a friend ignoring me in the halls was typical. I thought that staying up at night fearing the unknown was part of everyone’s night routine. I had a handful of other experiences in high school that would take me forever to name that were due to anxiety. But that was unbeknownst to me.

I thought having a fresh start in university would wipe my anxiety with it. But I found meeting new people to be as uncomfortable as ever, and I felt as if each and every person who I had met disliked a thing I said or my mannerisms. What made it even worse was being separated from my three best friends, and thinking that our ‘drifting’ was because of something I did. I cried over the situation for months but was never brave enough to tell them how I felt. I had gone panic attack free for a bit, I felt relieved and almost forgot how they had felt.

I remember the exact day that my panic attacks reemerged. August 3, 2019. I was at a bar with my friends, I was pretty drunk and even though I was surrounded by my three (previously mentioned) best friends, I felt really alone. I felt like nobody cared that I was there, that my comments were being ignored, that I was invited out of pity. Although I told them I’d go to the bathroom and come back, I felt short of breath right then and there. As I locked a bathroom stall that I practically threw myself into, I started sobbing. But I also couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t figure out how to control my breathing back to normal. I tried to call someone, anyone, but I couldn’t think of who. The next one was on October 5, then October 19, then sometime in early December, and finally February 6, one almost happened on February 8, but I entered my closet, cradled myself, and was able to calm it down.

Throughout this journey, I only went to therapy once, and although my therapist asked to see me again, I felt shame in turning it into a routine. This week was the first time my mother looked into a regular therapist, it was the first time I felt that someone regarded my anxiety disorder as a real thing. I think for a while my family and I blamed these tendencies on other things, on insecurity, on adolescence, on anything but anxiety.

I’m happy that I can write this without breaking into tears, that I can share my narrative, and allow someone who may be in my position to feel as if their narrative is valid too. I’m grateful to have good friends who have experienced what I have, even if it was in different forms. I have discovered a support system through 2 or 3 friends who related to my experiences. And to those who are suffering in silence, I hope you understand that you deserve support and love.

I think I have come to terms with all of this because I have learned one pivotal thing. Anxiety does not define me, I am many things and I hope by describing them to you, you can define yourself in the way you desire as well.

I’m a daughter — one who loves to do yoga with her mother and watch soccer games with her dad. I’m a friend who cares immeasurably about her friends and their problems — always striving to be the emotional yet mostly logical supporter. I’m a guacamole aficionado, I bake cookies for fun. I am a traveler — I am curious about everything. I hope to never live in the same place for too long, I hope that it’ll be New York, maybe London, and then Bali for a bit. I’m a granddaughter and a niece — one who needs to learn how to call more often but misses my family every second I get. I am a cousin who gives long hugs and asks a lot of questions due to lost time. I drink a lot of wine and make bad decisions but I am also smart, I have goals, and I know I have a lot ahead. I will adopt more roles as life goes on, I might be a wife one day or a mother. But while I am all of these things, I tend to let anxiety tell me that I am not. Maybe sometimes anxiety strives to tell me the bad things I contribute to each of these roles. But what I want to put out to the universe today, is that I won’t let it.