Liliane K., Oakwood High School
Coming Up for Air
I’ve always been an anxious kid. Floating down a river of my own worries, waves of nervousness threatening to drown me. It blinded me to others struggling as well.
Since I was young, the simple prospect of talking to new people was terrifying. The apprehension consumed me until I could hear my own heartbeat hammering in my ears, my gut telling me that everything was wrong and I needed to stay as far as possible from those situations.
I built up mental blockades, expressing my unsociable attitude, sending the message to people to back off before they could get too close. It worked. I never bothered to talk to people other than a select few close friends, so people never talked to me. Then I would proceed to wallow in my misery of my loneliness and antisociality. It felt like I had to run away from any social situation, rather than “facing the music,” (and the suffocating, heart-pounding, heavy breathing feeling that came with it.) I condemned others for the problems I created in my own head. It was much easier. My brain knocked me out cold with thoughts like: “They don’t want you here. You’re intruding and nobody likes you.”
I was at the mercy of my thoughts and assumptions no matter how void of logic they were. A puppet on strings submitting to some of the worst corners of my consciousness. I believed someone else was in my head feeding me these ideas.
There was only one thought that remained silent, one I locked shut and tossed the key away a while ago. I didn’t want to think of the possibility I was doing this to myself.
Oh.
It hit me a while after eighth grade ended, knee deep in a mud pit of middle school drama. A thick, unappetizing, social soup following the recipe of: lack of communication, and a key ingredient, so many, too many emotions. Most of this was a result of my walls and blame on other people. Me.
But that meant I could change.
The summer ended, stores started stocking their shelves full of school supplies and soon enough, High school rolled around. But the queasy feeling that always proceeded whenever I thought of starting a new school in the past had disappeared. A fresh start. New people who didn’t know me. I started talking to people. Considering the impression I was giving them. Tweaking my mindset little by little. Making more of an effort to walk up to strangers and strike up conversation And miraculously, people started talking to me more. I am happier now than I have been in a while. I finally had the answer.
You have the power to change. It’s scary, it''s hard, the water tries to fill your lungs. But you can fight it. You can rise up to the surface.
The flow of my river didn’t have to pull me down. I could swim.
