The Past Year

It's been a year since one of the hardest changes of my life. My youth pastor died on October 30, 2009 and that day changed my whole way of thinking. I had always been a anxious child and teenager, always afraid something bad would happen to me or the ones I love, but this was the first time something really hit home. Someone close to me died and the lives of the people I loved were shattered. I don't know if I ever really learned to cope with the idea that something horrible could happen in my life. I always knew to expect it, but I never really did expect it when it happened. Because of this, I will probably be a little guarded today because I am never truly prepared for bad news. Since that day, I tend to picture worst case happenings a lot more though. When my parents call me and leave a voice mail, I freak out thinking something has gone wrong. In the few months after Dan's death, I was a mess. I became so sure that something else was going to happen, I made myself sick. I could not relax for fear that that's when it would happen. For a while, I could not eat very much because I was afraid of throwing up. Since I was afraid of throwing up, I was afraid to eat. I would also get panicky every time I felt sick to my stomach which, because of nerves, was often. After a while, I started eating again without fear of puking, but I had different fears. I was afraid of something bad happening and that I had no control over it. Even during times when I felt like I was supposed to be happy, I would have disturbing thoughts and I would scold myself for thinking such things. I remember feeling somewhat depressed on Christmas Eve, but I felt so guilty because I thought I should be so happy, because circumstantially I was content and happy, but I still felt like something bad could or was about to happen. This carried into my Spring Semester of sophomore year. I honestly don't think I had this much worry before October of last year. It affected my friendships as my friends did not know what to do with me and my weird crying fits. I am pretty sure it affected my grades to some degree, even though schoolwork was a good distraction from my anxious thoughts. I remember thinking if I would ever be normal or be able to live my life without always feeling like I have to be aware of everything going on around me or else something bad could happen. I knew I had to change when I had a major freak out about being by myself. I feared that being alone meant that if something bad did happen that no one would be able to help me. At that point, I knew I needed to come up with a plan to figure out what was wrong with my thinking and change it. When I came to school my junior year, I dreaded all the changes I had to go through. I had to make new friends, I needed to essentially find a new support group that would be able to deal with my emotional outbursts sometimes. At first and for the longest time, I wanted to make friends so that I could focus on them and I would be able to stop thinking about those disturbing scenarios that would haunt me at random times. Somehow, I made new friends and decided that I would step out of my comfort zone a little. A little turned into quite a bit and I started making new friends nearly every day. I was slowly starting to build a network of friends that would be here for me if something bad did happen. I was also starting to realize how much I really do love people and how awesome it was to have friends. It's an awesome feeling to have people that love me and would want to hang out with me. I also started to go to counseling. I knew I had to go after I figured I could not figure this all out on my own. I've learned so much about how my thoughts are just thoughts and just being able to verbalize my fears to someone has helped the healing process. For the most part, I am OK now. I have my ups and downs but the thoughts have subsided and I am able to go weeks without being overly anxious. For months I had dreaded this day because I was going to turn this day into a sad one about how this day turned me into a mess. I was going to talk about how since October I have been afraid of living my life. I was going to mention that October 30, 2009 turned my life upside down in a horrible way and it's been a horrible ride since. While some of these things are true in some ways, in the past year, I have grown and been pushed in ways I could have never thought possible a year ago. Instead of looking at all the tears and pain I have been through in the past year as a negative, I look at today and know that God has brought me through all that and I am here today peaceful, joyful, and ready for the next year.