How People Can Get Over Their Anxiety

My name is Andy and I'm going to be offering a story on my anxiety and how I got over it.

I've decided to write about this because 28 percent of the world's population suffers from some form of anxiety or another. Those can range from social anxiety, OCD (Obssessive-Compulsive Disorder), Genralised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety is more common in secondary school students and college students, with students coming out saying they feel so anxious to talk to new people and always have a belief that they are going to be judged by another person by first impressions.

My Anxiety first started when I hit Secondary school in Year 7. This was because I had been bullied since the age of 6 and it made me feel very wary around new people because I didn't know if they'd be my friend or join the endless line of bullying I was going through at the time. My breathing and heart rates would increase to a level when I struggled to breathe and genuinely didn't want to engage in any social setting at all.

I was very much the nerd at school, head in books and always knowing some form of answer in class and wording it in a way that sounded really intelligent. This is when the bullying first started because people wouldn't accept the fact that I was a nerd and they also didn't think that actually paying attention in lessons and doing homework wouldn't get them bad grades. Boy, we're they wrong.

After the grades started coming in, and I was getting Grade C's and above, the bullying got worse. People were constantly putting me down for being a nerd and getting the good grades. The main ones who would do the bullying were (this is going to sound really stereotypical but it's true) the ones who were really sporty and the ones who were considered the popular, cool kids.

I wasn't popular. I wasn't cool. I didn't have the new item or gadget that came out and had it the next day. I didn't have the latest game or console. This began to affect me quite badly and it made my anxiety a lot worse. I had a fear that I wasn't going to be accepted into any social group at school, and that I wasn't ever going to be liked.

During my time in Year 8, I spent a lot of time on my own, sitting in the school library or outside picnic area reading. As a result of spending a lot of time on my own and having the fear of never being accepted, I developed a fear of meeting new people because I was afraid that I'd never be accepted by them.

Then one day, I came across someone who was just as nerdy as me. His personality was a lot like mine and we shared the same sense of humour. He and I were very similar and went through very similar problems with the students at our school. To this day, we are now best friends and our group began to grow with the more people we thought were similar to us, and it turned out they were. All were struggling with some form of anxiety or another.

Now that my life story is over, here is when the advice begins. My friendship group has held together for 5 years and we all get along really well. What helped us was that we spoke to one another about our anxiety and our struggles with talking to new people.

We helped one another by talking about psychology between one or two people. One person may think that: "That person seems really cool. He'll/she'll never talk to me." But sometimes that isn't the best thing to think. This is because of two things:

1. The person with the anxious thought will end up giving up very soon.
2. The other person might be thinking the exact same thing about the person who originally had the anxious thought.

Other ways in which I managed to help myself is when I attended college. I left secondary school to go to college to help further my qualifications for the job I want to do in the future. I met whole new friends and made friends with the "popular" people and the "cool kids" all because I started the conversation first.

Back in Secondary school, I always waited for a conversation to start. But as time went on, I went on to realise that starting the conversation first and keeping it interesting helped me to feel "normal," almost as if my anxiety wasn't there.

Part of the course I'm on is to carry out presentations to the tutors and classmates. At first, I was really nervous and anxious about carrying out the presentation thinking it was never going to be good enough. But I got around this by not reading the information straight off of the board. The best way to get around the anxiety is to allow a bit of adlib (adding in additional information into the presentation without it having to be there) and hand gestures to help project your voice and get your information out.

A final way that helped me to get over my anxiety was showing people what I could really do. I always seemed to keep myself to myself and didn't share what I could really do with anyone. My skills include being able to help someone with depression and/or anxiety, cooking, and playing guitar. After showing people these aspects of myself, I began to get appreciated and respected. As a result, I am now no longer anxious (although I still struggle every now and then).

All these things that I carried out helped me get over my anxiety to a point where it no longer bothers me.

I hope this helps other people get over their anxiety, too.