How Yoga with Adriene Combated My Mental Illnesses
In early 2017, I was sitting in a lecture hall at my university zoning out while my Biological Bases of Behavior professor went on about action potentials. To be honest, I don’t know what she was talking about because I was consumed by my own thoughts. The voice inside my head kept telling me that I was worthless. That I had no purpose here on Earth. That everyone around me knew that I wasn’t normal. My brain bullied me for eating a cliff bar earlier that day, saying that I had enough fat to survive off of. I began writing poems and songs with dark, depressing undertones and holding back my tears. About thirty minutes into the lecture, the tears poured out and I ran out of the lecture hall and to my car. I hated every part of myself and wished that on the way home, I would crash into the median on the highway and die.
I had tried therapy, antidepressants, positive outlets, and positive thinking and none of those worked. My boyfriend stood by my side through it all but fear of losing him for good only made the symptoms worse. I would lie in bed for hours crying and imagining my death, thinking it would be the only escape, and my anxiety crippled me — making it impossible to be in public alone. I had an irrational fear that everyone was judging me at all times and I would have panic attacks in my car when I tried to run errands alone. I wouldn’t eat for days…
