Over time, like the bones in my body, my anxiety has developed. When I was in grade school, I was anxious about making choices and being judged. When I was as young as six, I would stand in front of the mirror and see my “baby fat” that wouldn’t fall off no matter how much I stared. I would change from outfit to outfit before going to school. I would try my best to find the perfect fit in between “too sloppy” and “trying too hard.” As I walked through the halls I would be nervous about what people thought about what I wore. People would call me “gay” if my clothing choice was too aggressive. I would worry if I wore this outfit too recently and kids would say, “Didn’t you wear that yesterday?”

As the days got longer, and shorter, and longer again, I became anxious about the germs around me. I would see things on TV about diseases caused by germs and would have Purell always close enough so that whenever I felt bacteria crawl like spiders on my hands I could remove it from my skin.

When I entered middle school, the world around me changed. The Sandy Hook tragedy took place when I was in sixth grade and, all of a sudden, even school wasn’t safe. One day, while sitting in class during a test, I heard a series of pops in the next room. This was followed by a swarm of children’s screams. My heart felt cold. The hair on my neck stood up and small pimples sprung up on the edges of my skin. I sat there, test in front of me, waiting for something bad to happen. My life was going to end and there was nothing I could do. This was my biggest fear. I thought of how my parents would be crushed if I died. I heard the door slam in the classroom down the hall. I wasn’t ready to die. Everything outside of the classroom felt like a crime scene and all I could do was listen. I started to creep under my desk to hide myself from the shooter that felt seconds away from filling my friends with ammunition. As I started to burrow myself under my desk, people started to laugh and stare. I looked around. Everyone else was still focused on the test and wasn’t even phased by the terrifying sounds that I had heard. To my friends it was a group of balloons popping, but for me, it was a near-death experience.

Going through middle school, my classes got harder. I would stress about tests I was about to take and wouldn’t be able to let go of the answer. I would talk to teachers and they would say things like “just relax” and “don’t worry if other people are finishing before you” or even “It’s because you didn’t prepare enough.” Eventually I would finish dead last in the class when I thought a test was easy or wouldn’t finish by the end of class if I thought the test was hard. My dad would say, “How could somebody with such good social skills have a problem with anxiety?” I could stand in front of crowds without much stage fright. I would love to play golf in front of people. The more the better.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t confident in my skills. It was that I feared everything I didn’t know. After I die, I don’t know what will happen. I like to think that I will go to heaven but I don’t know. This is why I am so afraid of death. When I have to turn in a paper or a test I don’t know what I am going to get on it. This is why I am so scared to turn it in. I don’t know if I am going to be successful in life. This is why I am so afraid of what the future holds. I didn’t know what people at school were going to say about the outfits I wore. This was why I was so scared to pick one.