My anxiety is a nightmare. It's crippling and dibilitating. It's obnoxious and intrusive. It's constant, but when it goes away for short periods of time it comes back with a vengence. My anxiety is "a sick strange darkness that comes creeping on so haunting everytime." (blink-182 ((not a fan,but that line was what i used to describe my anxiety to other people))).

It started when I was young. I'm an only child and slept in my parents bed until I was 13 years old. I remember my childhood as a pleasant one but I still look back and remember all the times I had to be picked up from sleepovers from being homesick, and crying watching my mom walk out the door from my room after kissing me goodnight.

Through middle school and high school I'm okay. I'm always happy, active, and have lots of friends. Then 2003 rolls around and I'm going on an exciting trip to London with my friend Arthur. Upon arriving, I start to begin noticing my surroundings. I realize that they are completely different than home. They're not driving on the same side of the road. I'm on an island. This is a different country and I'm nowhere near my comfort zone. I feel that if I can't get in touch with my mother every 10 minutes, that she will die. I start to panic in a red british telephone booth. Screaming crying ripping my hair out holding my breath, breathing too heavily, too fast, tingling all over, the tightness in my chest and stomach unbearable.

The attack subsides and I am left in a state of shock and continuous anxiety. Friends try to help me, make me tea, they try to put food in my mouth because I haven't eaten, they try to put on my favorite songs or take me on a walk but I am basically catatonic because I am so traumatized by what has just happened to me, and I am always traumatized by the thought of my mother dying. Nothing can help me. So I leave England and my sweethelpful caring friends2 weeks early to go home.

At home, I'm much better but not completely, The fear is still lingering. WHAT happened to me in England? Will it happen again? If I am next to my mother is she any safer than she would be at work? walking down the street?

I have friends over and we are baking a cake and watching the news in the kitchen when we hear: Breaking News: Mother and Daughter murdered in Woburn, MA. (A town very close to my own) I fall to the kitchen floor into another state of panic. The same things happen. My friend hugs me and tries to calm me down but with some super strength I push her nearly across the room.

My parents have no clue what to do with me at this point, so they send me to therapy. My therapist, I remember had bleached hair and blue eyeliner and told me that it was okay if my mother died because she would be with marilyn monroe and frank sinatra. Um, yeah. Way to ruin therapy for me.

I eventually start school again, thus occupying my mind and the anxiety and panic attacks subside and I no longer really think about it..

The next year, January 25th, 2005 to be exact I'm out to dinner with friends and all is well still. Until we are driving home. It's cold and dark out, but I have all my friends in the car. I get that sick strange feeling starting to creep through my body again. Not again! I couldn't believe the familiarity of this horrible awful feeling. It's happening again. I thought it was over. It's so not over it's coming back, and someone is definitely trying to kill me. Again, the fear of my mother dying comes back.

For two weeks from that night I am bed ridden and my mother has to take leave from work to stay with me. I have to sleep in the bed with her while my father sleeps in my bed. I'm so anxious, not necissarily panicking. My muscles are tight and I am rolling around as if in severe physical pain. My eyes shut tight, my fists balled up, knees to my chest. I manage to sleep but the very instant I become concious I go back into this anxious state. I can't escape this! There is no way. I'm suicidal at this point, but there is no way i'd be able to move to kill myself. So I just have to deal with it.

My mom can't take it anymore, and brings me to see her Doctor on February 4th, 2005 (at this point i had still been seeingmy pediatrician) My grandmother, my aunt, my mother and I are all in the room waiting for the Doctor. She asks me what's wrong but I can't speak. I look at her and start crying because I dont know I have panic/anxiety and I think there is nothing anyone can do. my mom tells explains my situation and tells her how im scared, and she tells her about my attacks, and my consistent state of anxiety in which i can not move voluntarily. I can only writh around as if I am in pain. So my doctor says "Let's give you something to calm down, okay?" I don't think anything of it but my mom takes the script and we go to the pharmacy to pick up the pills.

Klonopin 1 mg take 3X a day daily. And so my mom watches as I swallow the first pill. 5 minutes later, I can breathe normally again, I am loopy and tired but I feel like a million bucks. My anxiety is gone. This is amazing. I can't believe I feel okay. I feel so happy that I could cry. This is the best day ever. The day I've been cured.

That was 6-7 years ago now. For a while I didn't need the pills at all, but I'm still anxious all the time. I still have my panic attacks (although im okay at controlling them now) But I'm still constantly anxious. I think now I have learned to live with it, when a few years ago I had no idea what it was. I know when to take my pills to calm down. I know breathing techniques. But sometimes there is still nothing that can help me and I don't know if things will EVER be normal for me or if I will ever have a life without anxiety.