Having an Anxiety Disorder Doesn’t Mean I’m Not Brave

I am a braver person four months into getting help for my anxiety disorder than I ever was before.

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When I was 4, I gave lifeguards both a laugh and a heart attack when I attempted to dive off the diving board.

Around the same age, I bragged about not being afraid to get a flu shot. I would be a doctor some day, after all. Doctors know that shots aren’t scary.

In kindergarten, I wrote a book about my favorite animals: snakes and crocodiles. Ask me how to tell a venomous snake apart from a nonvenomous snake, I could tell you.

I was my parents’ “brave, smart girl.” I didn’t know how to be anything else.

My college boyfriend was the first person to (gently) suggest to me that I have an anxiety disorder. “Were you a really nervous kid?” he asked me. “Were you constantly looking for monsters under your bed?”

“No,” I said. “I was a dare devil.” He rolled his eyes, as if accusing me of lying or misremembering.

A few years later, I asked my mom which of my siblings was the most anxious as a small child. Without hesitation she laughed and said, “You!”