When I was 4 years old, I used to be a carefree, toothy kid who always had the silliest jokes to crack with a wide grin on her face. It was hands down the best phase of my life. It was the time when I neverhad a spec of anxiety or worry. However, as I went to school and moved on to higher classes, I felt something changing within me. I was slowly turning into a scared, anxious teenager who was on a path to withdrawing into her own shell. In her shell, it feltsomewhat safe. School seemed tough for no reason at all and for all the reasons in the world, all at once.
I was developing serious mental health issues and social anxiety when I was in the 7th grade and I did not know how to stop. It felt like a bus ride that I sat on, not knowing when or where to stop but paying for each second of staying on board in the horrifying journey. My childhood best friend really helped me in this regard because she was the only person I used to speak about this to. However, any help that I could get, was still external. It was my own fight, my own struggle. After around 3 years, as I moved on to the 10th grade. I begun to make conscious effort to step out of my comfort zone and challenge the mental blockades I had built up for myself. It was as if I had built a wall around myself and only I could break it and it was tough since I had no therapist to fall back on. It took me years of patience, thoughts and courage to overcome my mental challenges. Each person in our lives, everyone we touch, is facing his or her own struggle. In my struggle, it was remembering my old self, how it felt being so carefree and how light my body and mind felt by just lifting the weight of my own thoughts and fears that brought all the change into my life and got me to overcome it. Even today, whenever I feel like I may be having an anxiety attack or may be moving back into my shell, I remind myself to drop the weight and allow myself to take up space and move around.