If you were me, you’d be paranoid too

 If you were me, you’d be paranoid too 

I have anxiety–I got diagnosed my sophomore year of highschool right before the epidemic of self proclaimed tik tok “therapists” became a trend and everyone had anxiety. This sucked. Nobody believed I had anxiety–it was just me trying to find another thing to fit in. Did I really need to find more things to try to fit in though? I mean, I was student government vice president, a varsity three sport athlete, worked at Starbucks and quite literally was in almost every club that my high school could offer. How could I be nervous? Then, COVID-19 hit and I was confined to the walls of my house and my only form of knowing what people thought of me was social media. This was a problem, I used to be really embarrassing in high school because I was just awkward. Then the doubt set in–maybe I really did not fit in as much as I thought I did and to be completely honest changed my entire life's view. 

According to the American Psychological Association, there was a 5% increase in Americans experiencing loneliness, considering we literally had access to each other 24/7 via social media platforms, this is odd. Now I can go on about how I was really lonely and picked up several hobbies during covid, but this is about the type of long covid I experienced–growing social anxiety. I was lonely, but it never felt like others were. I grew anxious seeing people post their zoom calls and google movie nights with friends, but I was seemingly stuck to a chair just watching like some weird outsider. This feeling manifested into a deeper feeling of anxiety that social media gives me even until today, I should not have access to seeing everyones lives all the time. But then the question comes again, was I really struggling to fit in? What was wrong with me? Is my fear of being alone what is making me anxious, is this just a really severe case of FOMO. 

Suffocating–that's how it feels to live in fear. Everytime you take a breath, you stop to wonder if it could lead to carbon monoxide poisoning and then freak out again. My sister did that once, back in 2023–she freaked out because she thought she had carbon monoxide poisoning and isolated herself for months leading up to her ultimate crash–she quit her job, started to eat meat after 14 years of vegetarianism and oh, became a republican! I mean I had my episodes of freaking out, but was this what was I going towards? Quite literally crashing out and going down, what my mom and sister both experienced. I went to therapy to talk about my concerns, and possibly how I can “avoid” crashing out like them. I got diagnosed with OCD lol and said “oh that’s probably wrong, I am very messy,” which until today is pretty true I never was the one to have the cleanest room or desk. Then it hits you. 

Maybe it is not normal to literally freak out if you do not get the same seat on the bus on the way home. I used to believe if I did not sit behind the driver every time, the person behind me would stab my neck because I was in the wrong seat. It is not normal to have to call your friends whenever you're home alone to check the “bathroom” and “under your bed” because you heard a creak and I used to convince myself someone was in my room. When I lived in Jonas, I would always check my shower curtain, behind the door, under my bed, the storage, everything would need to be checked to make sure someone was not there, I was running from quite literally nothing. It is not normal to be completely obsessed with freaking out about being late and if my parents did not text me back–I quite literally used to think in high school if my parents were late to pick me up they were dead, and I would have these panic attacks at work. There were just so many habits I had picked up that lead to these revelations, for reference OCD is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and often are paired with “rituals and compulsions.” I count my fingers in a really odd way.

 I have OCD and it is such an interesting thing when you tell people, because how much stigmas surround what mental health looks like. I don’t often tell people, “hey I have anxiety and it sometimes is really hard for me to talk to people since it comes in waves,” because they usually dismiss it as my social battery just being low. The overarching view that having one of these “mental illnesses” I think is what also adds to the lack of proper treatment to people. Most of the time it includes therapy or seeing a psychiatrist to see “why you are this way and what in your childhood led to this.” But I was a pretty happy kid, my parents are like my best friends and I did sports and the whole social butterfly thing, why am I nervous now? Other times people get diagnosed with medicine such as SSRI’s (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and feel a lot better. Unfortunately, not everyone feels the benefits from these medications and might not have the resources to get the proper response prevention therapy to help actually treat conditions or at least help reduce the symptoms. 

I don’t want to be medicated, I think medicine is really cool but I think I would diminish all the progress I have made. I no longer have to sleep with mittens on because I would scratch and itch myself that I would like to cut up my entire arm. I go to therapy and cry and freak it out and talk about how silly my fears can be after the initial compulsion is over. I think giving out pills like crazy to people like prozac and not really seeing how it affects them in the long run. According to the Harvard Magazine, the FDA only mandates clinical trials for antidepressants that typically last only six weeks. Antidepressants are such a hot topic when it comes to treatment for mental health issues–it saves lives and really does work for some people but others find themselves in a deeper hole and become addicted making their issues work. Sometimes I think the reason I avoid medicines is the internalized self fear that I am mentally ill and maybe that's where half the battle is but I have seen people become totally different people in a positive way that I can’t help but silence my doubts into something only I know. Now that RFK Jr. says that SSRI’s are just as addictive as heroin, which he was addicted to over 40 years ago btw, the rising interest to see what happens in the future for mental health treatments and such are really going to be a hot topic.  



Sources: 


https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2022/05/covid-19-increase-loneliness

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2000/05/the-downsides-of-prozac-html

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5281164/antidepressants-ssris-rfk-jr-heroin

https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/02/when-mental-health-care-becomes-a-human-rights-crisis/

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