Claire M.

Photography by Jess Pentel

By the summer before my senior year of high school, I realized that I finally needed help. My panic attacks and intrusive thoughts were getting more frequent and I was constantly on edge. I was barely passing through each day and quite honestly didn’t think I would live through the end of the year. Most days were trying to push through the whirring anxious thoughts and repetitive obsessive analysis on whatever my brain was telling me was an impending catastrophe. On some days, this spinning would reach its breaking point and I would just go numb. In some sad way, these days were a relief.

The issues I had always had were exacerbated by the looming pressure of college and “my future”. I could no longer function. I would lay on my floor for hours, paralyzed by panic or excruciating emptiness. My mother reached out to my doctor who recommended a lovely therapist who I still see now. She diagnosed me with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. It was a relief to hear that. I didn’t want to hear that how I was feeling was okay or normal because these swings from anxiety to depression were eating me alive. I wanted to hear that I didn’t have to feel this way.

I was put on meds and scheduled for twice a week therapy sessions. Despite this sign of hope, my intrusive thoughts persisted. They told me that this intense pain I was in would not end. They told me there was one way to end it. They told me that my family and friends, while they would be sad, would understand. These thoughts framed me almost like the dog that gets rabies in tearjerker movies that the solemn guy has to shoot at the end. I, like the sick dog, was loved, but would never be okay, so there was only one way this would end. I cannot express how much of a lie this is.

It’s still hard for me to understand how a part of your brain, lacking some chemicals, can try to kill you. It’s like some virus or bacteria that comes in and instead of stopping your heart or lungs it warps your thoughts. It tries to pull you lower. I don’t know why. What I do know is that it lies. In the beginning, for a bit, you do have to fight. You’ll have to try out medications and retrain thought patterns with a therapist. You’ll have to work through some stuff. There will be tears. You may realize how deeply the disease has infiltrated your brain. You’ll definitely realize that your family and friends would not understand the lies the intrusive thoughts told you. It was true that you couldn’t keep living the way that you were but the thoughts lied to you when saying it was permanent. The people around you aren’t in the same mind warp that you are. They can see that this is something that you can overcome to the point that it doesn’t have to be a struggle each day. Treatment does work and soon it won’t be a constant fight. Moments of actual peace start finding their way in. Soon they become more frequent. Within a year I found myself existing mostly in the healthy range of emotions. I even found out my personality. My life had been so controlled by my untreated mental health issues that they had almost consumed me. Finally, the real Claire could come out. It turns out that my base personality is actually pretty positive and easygoing.

This is not at all a professional take but this is the way I have begun to see my mental health issues. I almost see my anxiety and depression as on the same level as my dairy allergy. If I eat ice cream, I’ll get nauseous. If I get overwhelmed with responsibilities or go down rabbit holes, my thoughts will race. If my sleep schedule gets too off or my anxiety hits a breaking point, I’ll feel a malaise. It may sound weird, but it works for me. None of these bodily responses are important to who I am and none of them can kill me (obviously this is the case of a non life threatening allergy). The cause and effect view and detachment are also important for me. It’s not something I have to be scared of. I am fortunate to have a strong support system that helped me develop different coping mechanisms that keep me healthy while my medication keeps my chemicals balanced.

While I technically will have these diagnoses for the rest of my life, my days are no longer a fight.

Claire M., University of Virginia ‘22

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