Personal Narrative: My Personal Experience With Anxiety Disorder

When I was in the 10th grade, I was close friends with a young man named Alex Koser. He was not the type of person who was easily scared. In fact, he had very few fears, and he rarely was frustrated when life presented him with obstacles.

In high school, being brave is not hard to do. After all, a high schooler’s world is essentially comprised of school, home and a few neighboring areas that he or she is permitted to go with parental approval.

Similarly, my world was small, and my awareness of what lay outside of high school was not much greater. My tiny, high school world was shattered on February 12, 2012. Alex was shot and killed by his stepfather. He died one month before his 17th birthday. I came undone. Somebody that I cared about was suddenly and

Later on that year, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. My anxiety disorder was an obstacle in and of itself, but it also created obstacles out of everyday tasks. For example, learning to drive wasn’t a stylish and glamorous rite of passage for me; it was a 5’2” teenage girl controlling a two-ton metal deathtrap.

Close relationships became hard to bear, as I was afraid of seeing the people that I cared about suffering. Things that I had once enjoyed—being on my high school newspaper staff, cheerleading, going to the movies—became intimidating. I felt exposed to all of the dangers of the real world and worried that at any moment something could go horribly wrong. I began to fear the worst possible outcome in even the simplest situation, and I withdrew into myself, believing that it was “safer.”

I could have stayed that way forever. Withdrawn. Lonely. Scared. Safe.

However, I forced myself to believe that the potential end results of the trials I was facing were more important than my fear of something going wrong.

I learned to drive. I ran red lights, and bumped into curbs and eventually became comfortable enough on the road to test for my