Hello everyone! This is my first blog….and it will be a brief one until I'm ready to write more. Just to give you some backgorund, I am a 31 year old female, diagnosed with PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, and depression. I was first diagnosed when I was 19, and have come a long way since then.

I have periodic flare ups of anxiety from time to time, usually triggered by major changes in my life that I have difficulty adjusting to. The changes don't always have to be negative ones, often positive ones still provoke some anxiety within me. The episodes range from mild to severe, requiring some voluntary hospitalizations for the severe ones. Currently I am experiencing a moderate episode, and am re-working my life to adjust to it and alleviate it.

I, like most of us in this group, have dealth with a lot in our lives. As a child, I was regularly beaten and demeaned by my father. I dropped out of college when I was 19, because I was too afraid to be alone. When I came home, my mother left us, and it devastated me because I was so attached to her. I was molested by a swim instructor when I was 7. My parents didn't know, so I was forced to go back to classes with him even though I was petrified. I tried to slit my wrists when I was 20, because the anxiety and depression was just so overwhelming.

12 years later, things are very different. My anxiety is not cured, but the attacks have come less and less. I went back to the college that I originally dropped out from and finished my degree. I found the love of my life, and have been with him for almost a year. I found a decent paying job, got my own apartment, and finally got my driver's license and a car, both of which I had always been to terrified to do.

That being said, I still get anxiety episodes sometimes. Typically they consists of a few weeks of nausea, heart palpitations, and over-sensitivity. Lost of crying, need for reassurance. Usually a temporary medication adjustment until I settle down again.

The point of this blog is to remind myself, in the midst of this attack, that there is hope and that it will pass, even though it hurts. I know so many of you out there feel the same, and have similar experiences, and I want to tell you that I understand, and that your pain too, will pass.