They Call It... by Kaylee

They Call It... by Kaylee - January 2020 Scholarship Essay

My lips go numb in crowds. My head swims when I make eye contact. I'm nauseous when I have to speak. I have panic attacks, full hyperventilating and sobbing in the corner, when faced with a test or even if I think too much. Panic overtakes me when faced with the world.

They call it Moderate Social Anxiety Disorder.

I was thirteen.

Some days, I'm fine. Other days, my heart is made of stones and my head is so full of cotton that I can't hold it high like I was raised to do; I stare at the floor instead. The floor can't hurt me. I lock myself away just to stare at the wall as silent tears slip down my face. It's quiet there, and with a numb heart and a foggy mind, it’s all I can handle. They called it Mild Depression. Then I stop getting out of bed some days. My thoughts get darker and more hateful until all I can see is a cruel abyss with no end in sight.

They change their minds, then. Now they call it Moderate Depression.

I was fourteen.

Soon I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school, and my mental health was sliding, skidding out of control. Existence became a wet blanket, clammy and cold and clinging to me with every breath. I try to tug it off, and it just gets heavier. I try to sleep, but all I feel is cold. I had no control over it, and the world just kept getting darker and darker.

I was medicated – of course I was. An anti-anxiety medicine, a vitamin D supplement, and five failed anti-depressants and counting. They all did nothing, because they couldn’t touch the cause. Public school, unfortunately, was the root of it all.

Shoes scuffing against linoleum made me flinch. I was teased for a chronic disease I had developed at age ten. Things were thrown at me in the classroom for sport. Looming due dates made me sick to my stomach. Panic attacks over grades as low as an A- became common place.
The intense pressure to not only succeed, but to thrive, and the innate toxic social hierarchy of schools soon swirled together into a toxic cocktail for years, a toxic cocktail composed of mounting anxiety and deep, deep depression.

School became the place of fear. Where panic symptoms flood me, but my brain is too preoccupied with misery to react. Focus in class became almost impossible. The thought of being seated next to another student in class, someone that would, historically, most likely mock me for something out of my control, was dizzying. I crumbled. Days swirled together with apathy and tangible sadness. But still, I kept waking up at 6 AM, put on my best “I’m fine” face, and went to school, feeling worse than I ever had before with each new day, with each new class. Only to then let the façade slip away once I returned home. I was struggling – deeply, endlessly – with no hope of escape.

Or so I thought.

Online school, they call it. Taking advantage of the wonders of modern technology and the internet with virtual class rooms and video instruction. No longer am I hunted for sport in the halls of high schools, and no longer does the mere thought of school make me ill. Now, in the blissful isolation of computer-oriented classwork, I can focus solely on my own education, at my own pace. All the while slowly developing a healthy brain chemistry. Technology meant I finally felt safe and comfortable in a classroom. It meant I no longer hid in the darkness of my room just to escape the world, and no longer did I wish to fall into a dark sleep, never to return. Now, I’m actively learning, and working, to make something bright for myself for once.

They call it happy, I think.

I think I can get used to it.