Blog #2

I've been an anxious person ever since I was little. I would always hide from new people, screamed and cried in new places, hated surprises. I once spent an entire weekend (which could have been great) camping in Duluth with my family throwing up because the trip had been a surprise out of the blue from my parents, and my anxiety built up so much when they wouldn't tell me where we were going that it affected my entire weekend.

Growing up my parents always just said I was uptight, shy, too much of a perfectionist. None of which are completely untrue, but those 'answers' just weren't the whole truth - not the whole answer and I didn't have any solution.

It wasn't until I was older (around 15) when I began struggling with depression that my doctor finally referred me to a therapist, who then diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder including panic attacks among other things. She decided to put me on medication to help as well as continuing psychotherapy. However, I've tried many anxiety meds/antidepressants and none have really worked for me. Zoloft, Prozac, Anafranil, Emsam... you name it, I've probably tried it. I was actually on Prozac for almost 2 years before giving up on that one, but my doctors don't even have any real explanation for why medications wouldn't work for me other than "everyone is different, everyone's bodies react differently to different things."

So although many of these medications and science/medicine/technology advancements have worked for so many people and have helped so many people with anxiety/depression/etc., science is still flawed. Humans aren't identical. Brains are weird. Bodies are weird. Everyone reacts to things differently. Medicine is awesome - but not one-size-fits-all (more like one of these 15ish 'sizes' fits most but not all so yeah, you might be out of luck on this path)