Anxiety king

    "Having anxiety is no laughing matter" is what I say to people. This is one of my symptoms that I'm not actually ashamed of revealing to others, just because it's not as bad as telling others that I have autism or ADHD or a depression disorder. The panic attacks that I get sometimes (probably once a month or so, depends entirely on many factors, not on me (I'll explain later) are terrible, especially when their are people observing me breaking down. Feeling nervous about things I shouldn't be nervous about is also something I have to go through everyday, and these symptoms don't necessarily hinder my ability to continue my life, but rather it challenges that ability, as I have to make sure that certain things don't get me anxious or certain people push me through that limit (also more on that later). I'm going as far as saying that having anxiety is way worst than having autism (in my case) because I definitely rather go through thunderstorms (which don't happen often at all, I don't remember one happening in months), and not liking many foods (isn't a big issue anymore either) than feeling like the world is ending and I have nothing to do to solve my problem. Then again, all of my disabilities are interconnected in many ways in my opinion, and it's something that either hurts me or helps me in many cases. In today's blog, I'm going to explain how I live anxiety and what I go through nearly everyday.

    When I said all of my disabilities are interconnected in many ways, they really are. For example, my anxiety increases when I hear thunder and I have nothing to do (you guys might remember one of my blogs explaining that) which comes as a result of my autism. My anxiety also decreases when I'm not focusing on certain things, and instead I'm relaxing myself by stimming on objects with my hands as part of my ADHD (again part of another blog). I'm not going to list the reactions as a result of my mix of Anxiety and Depression, lets just say they don't mix well. Different environments don't necessarily affect me in any way, such as a shopping mall, or a crowded concert, and they really don't, anymore. A couple of years ago, when I was around 9-10, I was extremely scared of tsunamis. This might sound weird, coming from someone who enjoyed watching videos of waves reaching cities, but after the Tokyo, Japan earthquake in 2011, I bowed never to go near a beach again to avoid being caught in a tsunami. Living around 30 miles away from one, and it being summer time, of course my family wanted to go to the beach, whether I liked it or not. Los Angeles has a lot of faults underground, which makes the city extremely prone of earthquakes (yes I learned all of them just to make sure that the place was prone to earthquakes (also it scared me even more as a result), and Tsunamis form as a result of a earthquake. On a specific day that we were heading to the beach, my mom already noticed that I wasn't feeling well since I was sweating on my way to the beach. Finally when we arrived at the beach, I was looking at the waves and I instantly started to become a nervous wreck. I stayed put in the car and my mom said "why don't you want to go to the beach." I didn't want to tell her the truth (even though she already knew after overhearing me in the house (not to mention her watching my search history of countless websites explaining the different faults in Southern California) so I said "I don't feel so good." She said "there's some restrooms in the pier, I can't leave you alone in the car, it's blazing here" (It was nearly 90 degrees from what I remember, and even through I agreed with her that it was hot inside the car, I was willing to put up with it). Eventually, my mom pulled me out of the car and locked the doors, so I had no choice but to walk to the beach. My panic attack began as soon as I walked on the pier (I'm glad it was a Tuesday and not many people were there) and I began to say "I don't want to go! I don't want to go! There's going to be a Tsunami." My sister yelled at me saying "stop trying to ruin the fun for us!" I wasn't trying to ruin their fun though, I just didn't want to have the feeling of having a wave killing us all any minute. Long-story short, I began to yell, and afterwards my cousin who was with us stayed with me on a bench on the pier the entire time the rest were swimming (he was sick with the flu, so it wasn't like he was missing out on much). Point is, my mom nor anyone didn't realize that I felt a feeling of distress, they just thought I wanted to ruin their day. Trust me though, that wasn't my worst attack.

    So my panic attacks when I was younger were very different from the ones I experience today. For example, around the 8th grade (the worst school year, so it's no coincidence that on top of everything that I was going through, this had to happen), I was finishing up a group project the day before it was due (was my fault for choosing a group that made me do all the work).The day that it was due, I had the class for 2nd period, and I first went to 1st period, where I had two of the three group members for the same period. I was finishing the project and they both approach me. One of them tells me "you didn't finish the project?" I say "no, but I'm almost done." The other one tells me "okay, we're going to finish our homework for 3rd, hurry up." They didn't even help me finish it, they just left so they could finish their English homework. I looked at the clock and only 20 minutes remained, so I tried to hurry up. When only five minutes remained, and I still had nine questions to answer, my panic attack kicked in. I began to write so fast that the lead of my pencil would constantly break. When their was no more lead in my lead pencil, my panic attack reached the peak. I threw the pencil on the ground, and I began to cry (mind you, I was all the way in the back, with a huge tri-fold cardboard covering me from the rest, so it wasn't like people noticed). When the bell rang, I stopped crying and I walked to my 2nd period, where I see all of them sitting down where we were going to present our project. One of them asked "did you finish?" I answered "no, I need six more questions from the packet. My panic attack died down when he answered "we're not going up soon, lets answer them together." Thankfully we finished just as we were about to go up, and my panic attack was over. I still hated the fact that I had to go through 30 minutes of thinking that I was going to fail the class, not to mention the 5 minutes of shame (crying). While that panic attack was rather long, the next one I'm about to mention was shorter, but was greater in quality. My old friends (I hate them for doing this, and I'm thankful that I didn't go to the same high school as them) once took my phone away and he started running around the school. While they have done this other times (ya they weren't really friends that I could trust, but when you're in 7th grade you still don't know much), this time I had my phone unlocked and my mom texted me the day before that my IEP report from the last meeting came and I didn't want them reading that text. I began to chase him around the school hoping that he wouldn't read the message. During the chase, that triggered a panic attack and I was crying hoping that people wouldn't find out about my secret. Once I caught up to him, I grab onto his hoodie and I heard it rip as he tried to run away. At that point, my anxiety was at it's worst, and I began to hold his wrist tight. He gave my phone saying "dude chill, we were just playing. Are you crying?" I ran away from them and I locked myself in the restroom feeling ashamed about myself. These were the panic attacks that I didn't feel proud of remembering.

    What helps me to cope with my anxiety, or in case my depression as well. In terms of my anxiety, like I mentioned it all depends on what others do to trigger a panic attack, because in the case of my phone being taken away, that wasn't my fault. But when I feel upset, or more importantly my anxiety rising up, I always listen to music. Music in my opinion is a live saver because it relaxes me so much when I can lock myself in a room inside my house and just focus on nothing else but the music. I don't listen to Rock, or Pop, or any songs with bad words when I feel upset (not that I don't like those type of music, I'm very diverse in music, I just don't like those when I'm upset), I have a playlist on my phone dedicated to remixes of upbeat songs, or songs with good messages. Some remixes in particular that I really enjoy are remixes from Marshmello (any Marshmello fans here?). They are very upbeat and happy, and when I listen to them, they light up my day whenever I feel like I'm getting anxious (about 40/65 songs that are on my "Feel better" playlist are Marshmello songs or remixes, I have to see him in concert eventually). Other ways that I would cope (worked best when I was younger) was going for a bath. Even if I showered hours before the same day, I felt like submerging most of my body in water and imagining myself in another place was ideal for feeling better. Some places that I would imagine were make-believe places that I built as part of my paper crafts. One in particular was Train Heavens, a city on top of a cloud that had only trains as a way of transportation (now that I'm bigger, I realize that having only trains is a bad idea but hey, I was smaller). This type of coping with my anxiety really helped me in the long run, because instead of crying in my room, and having my mom come only to yell at me and call me a chicken which made things worst, I began to go into the restroom, where lots of my stress was relieved, Sure, I would cry sometimes as well, but other times I would imagine myself in a paradise, where everything could be my type of perfect. A note for parents who have kids on the spectrum, we DO NOT want to be around others when we're going through Anxiety or panic attacks. Even if it's their best friends or siblings, being alone in a quiet place for a couple of minutes will do better to relieve all of the stress, preferably with a favorite song or toy on hand.

    I hope you guys enjoyed today's blog. I hope that you learned more about how it feels to have a anxiety disorder and what I go through as a result of the disorder. For those of you who have the disorder or know people on it, these type of coping skills that I use could be useful to you guys as well if you hadn't tried them, I know they were live savers. As always, comment down any comments that you may have and consider following my blog page so you could receive all of my new blogs earlier than everyone else. As always, have a great day :)

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