Getting Over the Humps

Sometimes

I break down and I cry. Today just happened to be one of those days. I took my tear filled eyes into a bathroom stall and let my tears of stress fall onto the tiled floor. That is until someone walked into the bathroom. I then wiped my tears, came out of the stall,with bright red eyes and a girl staring at me asking if I am okay. I smiled big and said I was fine. I am good at that, being happy when I am sad. I am also apparently good at crying. I have moments, moments of stress and anxiety that make me just cry without wanting to, that make me feel lost, make me panic. Its anxiety overwhelming me, a disorder I was once diagnosed with, and then told not to think of it as a disease or something terrible. Well it is terrible, the feeling sucks. The thing is though, is that I fight it. Every second of everyday. Sometimes things happen all at once and it makes me cave and I cry, I cry for as long as it takes, 20 seconds, 1 minute, an hour. Then I get up, I smile and I try my best to forget about whats overwhelming me. High moments of stress are hard to overcome sometimes, sometimes I get a pain in my chest that wont go away for a long period of time. The first time I got that feeling was in a parking lot and I was afraid I was dying. I called my dad and cried and asked him what was happening to me, he said he wasn't sure and that maybe it was an anxiety attack, they run in our family he said. I didn't know what to do so I just held my breath and tried to feel my heart again. I think this is why I believe so highly in surrounding myself in peaceful, beautiful things. I don't want to feel that feeling ever again, I don't want to lack that kind of control over my mind effecting my body, but I do. I have the uncontrollable crying that I am working hard at overcoming. When you have anxiety and depression its harder to be happy even when people say "just stop thinking about it, just let it go and be happy" they don't understand how much effort it takes to actually do that. It feels like your brain wont let you. It just keeps repeating itself over and over the same stressful thing and you cant let go. You want to, trust me, you want to so bad it hurts but your brain is a powerful thing, and you will is a weak competitor. In the end, I always end up winning, eventually. Life is to short to be unhappy, to be filled with stress, anxiety, depression, anger, sadness. I am in a battle I work hard everyday to overcome, but I do it. I do it one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. I will not be conformed to antidepressant pills or anti-anxiety medication. I believe that my brain got my body into this mess so my body can get my brain out. I have found outlets for my anxiety and depression. I go to the gym, even when my brain says it doesn't feel like it, I write loud and clear about what hurts, I do yoga when things get really bad, and I take a deep breath. Then I climb out of the hole I put myself in. If you suffer from anxiety, depression, or any other disorder I am telling you right now you are not alone and there are ways of overcoming it that doesn't involve being highly medicated. You are in control of your body and your mind you just have to keep telling yourself that. Do not let your brain fool you, and do not give in. This is your life and you must fight to live it every single day, because if your not living your dying. Do not give up. You got this.