Anxiety — From Panicked to Power

I can remember experiencing different forms of anxiety as a child, even though I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

Back then, people didn’t speak openly about anxiety the way they do today. As a child, you were almost afraid to tell anyone how you really felt because you worried they would think you were strange or different. So I learned to hide it. I kept so much of it inside.

But anxiety always found a way to creep back in.

I remember being in school and suddenly my mind would start racing. I couldn’t catch my breath. I would feel like something was terribly wrong, and they would send me to the nurse’s office. So many times, my mother had to come pick me up.

Eventually, other kids started teasing me, which only made me want to hide what I was feeling even more.

My mom would ask me, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

And the only answer I had was:

“I don’t know. I just can’t breathe.”

That was one of the hardest parts of anxiety as a child—you feel something so strongly in your body, but you don’t have the words to explain it.

Looking back now, I realize I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I was trying to understand something I didn’t even have a name for yet.

And this is why I’m telling these stories now. Because maybe there is someone reading this who remembers feeling the same way—or a parent watching their child struggle and wondering what is happening.

Sometimes the first step is simply knowing: this feeling has a name, and you don’t have to hide it.