, 12 min read
Battling Anxiety: Part 1 | My Struggle | Anxiety Triggers
1. Channel Update: 1 Million Views and 25K Subscribers
Hi guys, welcome to my channel! My name is Myra. It is so great to see you again.
So today, I wanted to talk to you guys about... okay, so should I just ignore the fact that my video got a million views, or should I touch on that quickly? I think I'm going to touch on it quickly.
As I stated previously, one of my videos got a million views, and that is mind-blowing. I don't know what happened to make that video go viral, should we say, but whatever I did, I hope I can do it again.
The best way to describe how I feel about 25,000 subscribers—the best way to explain what that means to me—is that I just see that number as, "Wow, 25,000 people like me." Like, they like me enough to subscribe to hear more from me, and that is extremely—a huge honor. But at the same time, it's extremely terrifying, and I don't want to let people down. I am terrified that I will, but just know that I'm trying my best.
I am not prepared to have so many subscribers right now. Like, I don't know exactly what this channel is going to look like or be about. I am not good at editing, I don't have a camera, and I'm just doing this on my cell phone, so please bear with me. I don't know what I'm doing. All of that being said, if you're still here, that's nice. I hope that I can make it clear that I am just extremely grateful, extremely shocked, and overwhelmed.
The thing that gaining so much popularity so quickly has done to me, though, is that now I'm kind of like a deer in the headlights. Like, I don't know what to record next. I don't know what videos people want to see. I'm super, super scared to mess up now, so the pressure's on. I feel the pressure, and I don't like that.
2. Opening Up About Social Anxiety
I want to talk today about something that I am extremely, extremely passionate about, and hopefully, by sharing, other people can relate to this. That's the whole point of this. I have wanted to talk about this issue ever since I started my YouTube channel a year ago, but I have been waiting because I don't want to mess up. I want to touch on it so perfectly, so I'm really nervous to even try because I don't feel ready yet. But I'm going to try.
So, I'm just going to kind of do what I've done in previous videos, and I'm going to give a timeline of my life and all of the things that I struggled with. There were so many things that I struggled with as a child and a teenager, especially.
I didn't know what anxiety was and what social anxiety was all the way until I was about 17 or 18 years old. I know that sounds almost unbelievable, but I am not kidding. I had no idea what I was experiencing, what I was going through, or what my problem was. I had no idea until one time I stumbled upon it on the internet.
I remember when I read it—I still remember exactly how I felt and where I was—and I found the definition for Social Anxiety Disorder. I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is me. This explains it. This is exactly what I've been going through this whole time."
I'm just going to kind of read off everything that I struggled with as a teenager and a child.
3. Childhood and Teenage Anxiety Triggers
3.1 Appearance and Driving Fears
I would wear makeup to school every single day, and I had this terror of being seen without makeup. I would even wear makeup at home with my family; I wouldn't go a single day without putting on makeup.
Another anxiety for me—oh, I'm so tired and brain-dead—a huge one for me was driving in cities. Any city with more than 5,000 people in it—that's what I mean by "city"—or more than one or two stoplights was enough to terrify me. And don't even get me started on four-way stops; that was like my worst nightmare. I was petrified. Because of that, I avoided cities. I avoided going into cities, and I just stayed around my hometown of 500 people.
If I ever was forced to go anywhere with more than two stoplights, my palms would start to sweat, I'd get super nervous, and my heart would pound. If I was riding in the car with anyone, I would tell them to stop talking because I needed to focus. I needed all my energy focused on driving. I'd have to turn the radio off because I just couldn't bear any kind of distraction.
3.2 Eating and Ordering in Public
Another thing that caused me a lot of anxiety, and something that I just didn't do, was eat in front of certain people. Basically, when I was around anyone unfamiliar to me or anyone new, I couldn't eat. I just physically couldn't eat in front of people.
Ordering at restaurants was a really, really big one. You know when the waitress comes up and she's taking everyone's order? That was such a huge trigger for me. It was a huge, huge anxiety... what is that word? Trigger. Anxiety trigger! I think that's the word I've been searching for this whole time. Yeah. So I'd feel like this really huge state of dread. I'd be in so much dread and anxiety waiting for her to look at me, and every time, I would always say something wrong. You know when you're nervous, you mess up your words? I don't know if—I mean, hopefully, that happens to other people, but for me, when I'm nervous, I mess up my words so badly.
I still remember, actually, when I was trying to order at Starbucks and I said... what did I say? Yeah, I said "flappuccino." That's what I said, yeah, because I remember it was like a frappe/cappuccino blend, so I was like, "Can I have a vanilla flappuccino?" That's what I said. Yeah, so I messed up my words so bad.
Along the same lines as ordering at restaurants, I couldn't bring myself to order at drive-thrus. Still, that's something that causes me some anxiety because I haven't done it very much. I got my license, you know, I think when I was 16 or 17, and it took me all the way until I was about 19 or 20 to go through my first drive-thru. Yeah, so I just avoided them for years. Like, I would always park and go in. Anything new was terrifying for me.
4. The Intense Fear of Awkward Situations
Pretty much the biggest thing for me—and this is one of the things that I struggle with still to this day very, very much (I hope people can relate to this, and I think this is a symptom of social anxiety because I remember I read it online)—is that I have an insane, intense, horrible, huge, huge anxiety and fear of awkward situations.
I know that a lot of people feel uncomfortable in awkward situations. But if I'm in an awkward situation, I want to crawl in a hole. I want to go into a dark closet and hide there.
Like just recently, I was with my roommates and they had their friends and family over—people that I didn't know very well. I was trying to be social and trying to talk with them, and I said something, and everyone misunderstood. Everyone at the table misunderstood what I said. They all thought I said something different than what I had meant, and so they were all offering their opinions and saying things. I was just shrinking in my chair, feeling just the worst feelings—the most embarrassment and yucky feelings. Like, it makes me shudder. Awkward situations like that make me shudder.
And guess what? I literally went downstairs to my room, went into my closet, turned all the lights off in the pitch dark, and I stayed in the closet for probably an hour or longer. And this was about five months ago! So I'm still dealing with this. Like, awkward situations are terrifying for me. They are. So I just cannot handle awkwardness. I would love to talk to someone about this who understands it and relates, because I actually have not met anyone who relates to this.
5. School, Phone Calls, and Everyday Errands
Another thing that happened during high school was that I'd get the urge to cry when I'm embarrassed, and I get easily embarrassed—very, very easily embarrassed. Basically, it happened constantly in PE (Physical Education) in high school. Anytime I was playing a sport—a sport of any kind—that was just the greatest, biggest anxiety trigger ever. Everybody watching you mess up... "Get away, fly, fly away." Yeah, anyway, I just hated it. I hated lots of people watching me mess up. It's definitely a trigger for me, and it still is, for sure. People staring at me—which I guess makes this YouTube channel a little bit ironic, given that in my last video, a million people were looking at me!
Calling anyone on the phone was so daunting, terrifying, and petrifying that I couldn't do it. I physically could not do it. I remember in high school I had an assignment where I had to call somebody. I was a mostly straight-A student in high school, but I failed that assignment because I did not call that person. Because I couldn't. So that's kind of how serious it was. I am not the kind of person that fails assignments. Slowly, I think I've been able to force myself to do it, but I have never stopped being terrified of it and dreading it. I definitely still put it off, and the more serious the phone call is, the more petrified I am about it. You know, like job-related phone calls, or if my boss at work calls me—terrifying, horrible. Oftentimes, I don't answer and let it go to my messages, and then I call back. I don't know why, but for some reason, getting an unexpected phone call is much worse than seeing a message and then calling back. I still deal with that on a daily basis. It's so, so, so, so hard.
Another thing that I struggled with when I was young: for about three years after I got my license—maybe even four years—I only got gas at one gas station: the gas station in my little town. Because I was terrified of trying to figure out how to use the gas pumps at other gas stations. I hope now you realize how severe my anxiety was. Like, that is severe—that you can't go to gas stations to get gas because you're terrified of trying to figure out the pumps. I was that terrified.
Kind of along the lines of not being able to order at restaurants, I couldn't buy things from stores. Like, I couldn't go up to people at the checkout. That was for many years as well in my teens; I couldn't go up to checkouts because it was like a mix of social interaction and awkwardness that I could not get over. I also was terrified of trying to use a self-checkout for the first time because I didn't want to do it the first time. That's always been my problem: I can't do things for the first time.
6. Missing Out and Overcoming Boundaries
I am getting to the end of my list, but another horrible fear that I had was knocking on doors. And I shouldn't say "had," because that is "have."
In high school, we had to do fundraising to go on a class trip to New York City. I couldn't go on the class trip because I couldn't do the fundraising. The fundraising involved calling people, knocking on people's doors, and selling things to them, and I could not do that. I actually did go with somebody and tried to knock on one door, and ever since then, I knew I could not do that again. Like, it was so awful, so awkward. It was a stranger there like, "Why are you here? Who are you? What are you doing here?" And that's the awkwardness that I talked about—so awkward. I never did it again, and I didn't go on the class trip even though I wanted to. So my anxiety has limited me a lot.
I don't know how many people know what forensics is, but I did force myself to do forensics. One of the years when we went to state—it was in another city, we went to the state competition in forensics—we stayed the weekend, and I didn't eat anything the whole weekend. All of Saturday and all of Sunday, I didn't eat anything because we young kids had to go to like, different restaurants or different stores and buy food there, and I couldn't.
I also had anxiety using public restrooms, which I think some people do have. I used to have to cover my ears and close my eyes to use public restrooms.
I was terrified to use—actually, I shouldn't say "was" about this one either—I am terrified of using any kind of public transportation. I think public transportation is a perfect mix of people interaction that is scary, and also the anxiety of something new.
And parking ramps! I'm still terrified of parking ramps, and I avoid them at all costs. I avoid driving downtown in all different downtown areas still because I'm terrified of driving downtown. But for the most part, I've gotten over the driving fear.
7. Current Adulting Challenges & Life Stressors
Probably the biggest anxiety that I have now is basically day-to-day adult life, as in getting jobs, going to interviews, meeting new people, and dealing with co-workers and your boss at work. And then any other kind of adult issues, like insurance.
Like health insurance—for me, with my car accident, I had to deal with the insurance company for months. I had to figure out how to deal with insurance companies, payoffs, and getting paid for the accident, and that was so stressful. One of the biggest reasons I have not uploaded since February is because of that stress—from the stress of dealing with the car insurance company, my physical therapy bills, and also just trying to get better from my injuries.
8. Interlude: The Secret Word
I'm sorry to interrupt! I want to give another word, and I have to put it in the middle of the video because some people might skip to the end just to get the word. All right, I know some people might think this word thing is dorky, but I like it, so I'm gonna keep doing it.
The special secret word is: Jello.
If you make it through this video, comment "jello" and I'll know you've seen the whole thing. Okay? All right, back to the video.
9. Conclusion and Looking Forward to Part 2
I would just say adulting—adulting in general—has been the worst anxiety for me still. There are many, many other things that I had anxiety over, like raising my hand in class (I couldn't really do it) and I couldn't talk to other people—I definitely couldn't talk to certain people in my school.
But soon, I'm going to record another Part 2 of this video, and I want to touch on revelations and everything that I've learned about anxiety. In many ways, I have overcome anxiety. I've overcome a lot of my fears, and every day I'm always pushing myself to overcome more fears.
Again, my greatest flaw, my greatest weakness, is fear. So, I struggle with it every single day, but I am trying so hard to conquer it. I don't want to just be like, "Oh, I'm fearful of everything and that's okay, I accept it, I'm going to be that way for life." I'd rather change it and become the person I want to be, which is a fearless, very brave person.
All right, I think that is it. There's so much more that I struggled with, and I could have gone into detail more, but it's really hard to touch on it the right way when you don't have it scripted. But I'm really determined not to have anything scripted on here, so I think that's all. I think I'm going to say goodbye. So if you can, please give a like, a comment, and subscribe, and I'll see you guys in my next video!