In living with GAD has been a challenge. In my youth I always wondered why I felt nervous in social situations and why I would worry all the time. I never seemed to fit in at school as having anxiety can be seen on your face and made me a target.
In fairness this was not known back then and it was brushed off as growing pains or being a little too sensitive. Even as time went on having anxiety was seen as being very weak if diagnosed.Also, parents were either unaware of this or unwilling to accept a child as having a condition such as this. Having a mental illness had a different sigma that you were crazy or you had a defect of some sort.
Mental health was not seen as gray as it is now.
I was seen as socially awkward and very quiet which were parts of my personally, I thought it may be something I grew out of. I wasn’t as bad as other cases as never had full blown panic attacks or had to be hospitalized. But it did(and still does) paralyze me in life especially socially.I also had huge fears of being physically hurt or was withdrawn which made me a target of bullies. This would only make things even worse and seemed to put me in a never ending vicious cycle.
I still had a relatively normal childhood but I had to always carry this monkey on my back.It ejected me socially, my performance at school and was partly the reason got involved in many sports and activities in school as well. I went childhood never knowing what was completely wrong.
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