Why We Need To Stop Viewing Anxiety As An Adult Problem

Anxiety is a hot-button issue everyone is constantly talking about. As a millenial, being chronically anxious seems to be one of our many prerequisites, like working freelance without benefits or never being able to own a home in the foreseeable future. We talk about anxiety a lot, but it always seems to be in the context of adulthood, as if this life-inhibiting condition just sprouts up out of the blue.

I was trying to pinpoint the exact moment my anxiety started. Was it the first time I realized a crush didn’t like me back? Was it when I had to give a presentation in class? Or maybe it was when I stared at myself in the mirror and realized I didn’t like the person I saw? I don’t think there was ever one moment that “created” my anxiety. It was always there, it just never had the right label.

I was an extremely shy child. I was the kid who hid behind a parent’s leg to avoid meeting new people. I would let my twin sister do all the talking for me because it was easier than talking for myself. I had to change preschools because I was terrified of my teacher who looked like Ursula from the Little Mermaid. Later on I learned my shyness was so bad I had to start grade school a year late because I couldn’t socialize as well as other kids my age.

When I made the switch from Sunday school to youth group, I was so nervous I hid behind a curtain. One of the youth leaders tried to get me to come out, but I didn’t want to meet her. Of course by this point it wasn’t called being shy. It was called being immature.

I always lived my life feeling like I was playing catch up. It didn’t help growing up with my sister who was in the advanced classes, was very outspoken, and excelled at everything she put her mind to. She was raised under the unfair social pressure that “girls are more mature.” The result was that her put-togetherness made my flaws blatantly apparent to me at an early age. It was impossible not to compare myself, or be compared with her. I acted even more immature as a result, to hide that budding feeling of worthlessness the only way I knew how.

No matter how I tried to distract myself from it, that sense of worthlessness continued to linger. It would become overwhelming and cause me to breakdown over the seemingly tiniest things, but the truth was these breakdowns were a long time coming. People only ever noticed the final straw, never the full load carried. They’d say, “Don’t be so sensitive.”

I heard that when I kicked a hole in my wall when my brother teased me one time too many. It wasn’t about what he said, in fact I don’t even remember. I had spent the whole day feeling alone at school, feeling like no one cared, and couldn’t escape that feeling of worthlessness in my own home. My parents didn’t know any of that, they only saw my overreaction to a harmless joke.

I quit my soccer team in the seventh grade because I was so worried about what my teammates thought about me. I was the weakest player and always felt like I was letting my team down. Despite the fact that one of my best friends was on the team, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that none of them liked me, that every loss was somehow my fault. I had to beg my parents to let me quit, to the point of tears. They reluctantly agreed but told me I was too sensitive.

Constantly worrying what other people thought of me became even more exhausting as I entered high school. I would lie awake at night wondering if I really was worthless, unable to let the bad thoughts pass. As a result, I got insomnia. The little energy I had was now completely depleted. I felt like a zombie all the time, to the point I stopped trying, not just to fit in, but to do anything. I was no longer simply immature or sensitive. I was detached.

It was easier to just stay in my room and do my own thing. I did independent study so I wouldn’t have to go to school. I wouldn’t put myself out there so I wouldn’t have to worry about all the thoughts racing through my head. I’d hear I was antisocial, selfish, lazy. My parents thought I hated them. My friends would joke that I was a serial killer or autistic. The more people made me feel bad for keeping them at a distance, the further I kept them at a distance.

Now I’m an adult, and they call me anxious. For the longest time I didn’t know how I got here, but looking back I’ve always been here. These intense feelings have been constant throughout my life. It’s only the definitions people gave them that have changed. I don’t justify my shy, immature, sensitive, or detached behaviors, but I do now recognize them as symptoms of a greater disease, a disease that has slipped under the radar my entire life.

I wonder how I would be able to better manage my anxiety today if it was given the proper label when I was little. How would the people in my life have reacted if they saw the problem for what is really was? Kids aren’t as resilient as we make them out to be, they just suppress the patterns they don’t fully understand until they’re impossible to hide as adults. We fail to think of anxiety as a child’s problem so we fail the children who suffer from it. Our ignorance allows it to fester. Our neglect is ultimately the cause.