written by: midori

growing up with anxiety that constantly controlled my life was exhausting. when ur younger people label u as “shy” or “lazy” when really u are just terrified of everything. i hated trying new things, my parents always told me i need to be doing something, whether it’s playing soccer or doing photography classes. they never understood why i would cry for hours before having to go do an activity with people i didn’t know. i was always seen as a cry baby in my home. people would ask me why i don’t like doing things or why i only hangout with one friend and i never had a word for it until i got older. as i went through middle school and high school i went through a phase of being less scared of everything. i was walking around late at night by myself, hanging out with friends at parties and actually enjoying it. i don’t know if it was my friend group at the time who made me feel comfortable enough to be myself in public or the freedom feeling it gave me or if it was just the known fact that we are all just dumb kids. my junior year i met a boy who i ended up dating for years, we did everything together because he was new to the area and didn’t know anyone. one day i brought home a cat for us to raise and after that i never left the house, i always wanted to be home with my Lola, i took her everywhere, which made my anxiety worse. i moved out of my house to my boyfriends parents house and i literally never left his room. my senior year i had no friends at all, i had pushed everyone out of my life or dropped the shitty people who called themselves my friend. it wasn’t till my boyfriend at the time met Ghaith, a person i met in 7th grade that i always had gravitated towards. we all started hanging out and i found myself a new friend group that i cherished. ghaith was always someone i could hang out with 24/7 and not get annoyed. he was the only person in my life like that besides another my childhood best friend Ileana.

my friends babied me so my anxiety only got worse. i was about 19 when my parents told me it’s time to get a job. i was terrified. i tried to explain to them how scared i was to try something new and they just never understood. they always just told me how lazy i was yet it was never about being lazy, my brain just told me i couldn’t do it. i applied to a lot of places, had a few interviews. i finally got a job at forever21, i remember when they told me i was hired and that my pay was above minimum wage, i was so proud of myself. i finally got a job and i was actually looking forward to working there. i surprised myself with how well i did there, i always knew i was a hard worker. i wanted to prove to my parents it wasn’t laziness, and i did after i got promotion after promotion. even though they always questioned how i was able to get a higher position, i always felt like they wouldn’t praise me for things that seemed big to me because they seemed so small for them. i loved being a manager at forever21, i made a lot of friends there. i eventually became a visual manager and i absolutely enjoyed it because i could be artistic, get paid for it, and honestly not have to talk to customers. i ended up leaving my boyfriend because we had a lot of problems. i moved away and he stalked me for months, he would bang on my door at 1am and i had to let him in because i was scared someone would call the cops. he would throw and break my things and just scream at me for hours. i had to have ghaith sleep over just so i could sleep. my ex made my anxiety even worse, giving me a lot of triggers that i still have till today. it took a few months for him to leave me alone. i told no one about the stuff he did to me. ghaith witnessed some of it, but never the worse. when life kind of got back to normal i slowly started to hate forever21 as most people do. higher management was legit ass, they didn’t care about anyone. i ended up walking out after being emotionally abused and constantly sexualized by higher up managers. i never really told anyone about it either. my family never knew anything i went through, till this day they still don’t. when i was around 21 i reached out to my mom and explained to her that i was struggling with going out. she took me to the doctor and when we went into the back they asked me a lot of personal questions, questions i never expected to answer in front of my mom. i cried, she cried, and i was finally diagnosed with severe social anxiety and depression. i remember walking out of the parking lot with my mom still crying, telling me how she never knew which angered me a little because how did u not know ? i told my mom not to tell anyone else in the family about the things i said in the doctors office, she agreed but eventually didn’t listen.

i had my dad reaching out to me constantly asking if i was okay. i was so upset, i like to work things out on my own, i hate when people worry about me. i started taking medication like zoloft but i hated it because it made me even more suicidal, although i felt like it did help with my anxiety. i was able to start conversations first with people i’ve never met which i’ve never done before. i hated that i had to stop taking it. fast forward to a few years later and i’m a successful sex worker. i get to work from home which is anyone with social anxiety’s dream, but i also felt like it was harmful at the same time because if i didn’t have to talk to people, then i wasn’t going to. i started taking shrooms often which actually takes my anxiety away, on shrooms i felt like i could do anything, talk to anyone, my anxiety was gone. my brain wasn’t telling me i’m gonna embarrass myself if i speak. it was nice and a beautiful feeling. it’s hard to express to people without social anxiety because they don’t understand. most people tell me to just get over it but they never stopped to think, if i could, i would. a year later i was diagnosed with bpd (borderline personality disorder) i actually cried when i diagnosed because it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. i hate to hide behind mental illness but bpd explained why i did a lot of things, things like self sabotage or having my mind tell me everyone i love hates me. i’ve never taken any medication for it though, i’m genuinely scared of medication because of what it did to my mom, but i always wonder if it would actually help me. after moving to new york my anxiety got worse again, i can’t go anywhere by myself, i get stared at every time i leave the house. i can even be with my boyfriend and still get comments and looks. whenever he steps into the bodega for 5 seconds, i get weird men coming up to me telling me how pretty i am or men literally in their cars asking for my name. being out here in this big city with social anxiety is really hard. my boyfriend has introduced me to a lot of nice people, but i can’t get past the introduction. i’m too scared to talk to anyone. i hate being known just as someone’s girlfriend when i am so much more, but my anxiety doesn’t allow me to express myself around random people. it’s awful. i hate only knowing one person in this giant city. i feel bad because my boyfriend has to tend to me a lot and i know he had a whole life before i moved here. he has a lot of people who love him and they wanna be around him just like i do. it was hard moving from ghaith since he was my comfort zone and helped with my anxiety. now that i am away from him it’s really hard to be okay to go out into public or parties or beat shows. i wanna get better and i hope i eventually do. i am tired of anxiety controlling my life.