Fear and Anxiety Took 10 Years of My Life

All my life I was told I was smart. My teachers, my family all said I was like a little adult. An old soul, so smart and wise. That I was going to be something big when I grew up. And maybe if I was a Caucasian middle class kid, it would have happened. I was a poor Hispanic kid with an alcoholic dad. I didn't know then how sad I was. In fact, it took about 20 years to realize it. Growing up in a strict family, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere but school then home. But home was a nightmare to me. I lived in constant fear of things no child should have—whether we'd be kicked out of our home. If I came home would I have food to eat? Would my dad be drunk and belligerent? That's when worry began to take over my life. Growing up in the hood and being Hispanic made talking about these struggles impossible. Hood mentality is, "everybody's in the same boat," so instead of resonating with each other, we all try to one-up one another. Hispanic mentality is, "things that happen at home are NEVER to be spoken about to anyone ever." And so, my stress and worry snowballed. The more bad things that would happen, the more stress I'd get, the worse and worse I'd do in school. I became a shell of a person. Someone with no ambition with no passion whatsoever for anything. Even the smallest things I didn't care about. It wasn't till after I graduated highschool did the real fear and anxiety set in. I had nothing. No plans. No money. No skills! I kept thinking to myself, "next year it'll change, next year I'll change!" But the longer I waited, the more scared of the world I became. The one job I managed to get was so horrible it made me more socially anxious. More fearful of life. Everyday that'd it'd wake up I felt more and more like a coward. I felt more and more shame. That this kid who was born with so much promise failed everyone around them. The fact that I was in my 20s and my family still had to care for me made me a burden. I spent 10 YEARS that way. Let me tell you, when you've lived a decade with guilt and shame, it'll start to take a toll on you physically. It got so bad that I gained 100 lbs and fell sick and practically bedridden for an entire year. That's when I realized: WTF am I doing?! I'm really going to let fear and guilt kill me? Literally?! No way! If I'm here on this Earth, it is for a purpose. Even if I haven't found it yet, it's worth it just to try confessing each day that I'm none of those things my guilty conscious made me think I was. Confessing that I'm a human being of worth. That not having a degree or certain skill sets doesn't mean I'm any less of a human being than those who do have those things. Just because I don't have a college diploma doesn't mean I can't do amazing things! It only takes one change of mind to completely change your life. Just like one negative thought can lead to a million stresses, so can one positive thought do the exact opposite. I'm taking it one day at a time and seeing where it takes me!