A Note to Anxious Teens

Hello, friends! If you are reading this, you probably have anxiety or are affected by it in some way. Or, at least, you would like to learn more about it from a different perspective. So, here we go. The familiar tale starts like this:

There is a trigger. Something happens, someone says something, and you notice that something is off. It’s different for everyone. I am sure many of my anxious friends in the audience can find themselves one of those super-vague examples. Then comes the thoughts. Oh, the thoughts! Those annoying little voices saying you are not good enough, that you will mess something up, that something will go horribly wrong. Overestimating severity, probability, or both; it causes your face to go hot,  your heart rate to increase, palms to get sweaty, throat to go dry, tears to form in your eyes, among a myriad of different things. And it sucks.
I get it. I have severe social anxiety: I barely talked to anyone new my freshman and sophomore year of high school because I was too afraid of what would happen, that I would look weird, that I would make them mad, that I might be awkward. Those lovely voices dictated my life, my decisions, my relationships, for two whole years. They have not stopped, but they have quieted down.
For example, here’s a funny (and hopefully relatable) story. I recently started dating someone. A cute and funny girl that goes to my school. All was going well the first few weeks, but it all took a turn when she hinted that she might want to kiss me. That was the trigger. A new social situation.
Then, the thoughts kicked in:
What if I am bad at kissing?
What if I say no and she hates me?
What if I say something wrong and this whole relationship just goes to shit?
What if, what if, what if, what if?
My girlfriend is super chill, so in reality I knew that even if things went horribly, she would laugh it off as I cringed at myself and then we would move on. But my brain did not get that far; it only descended into a dark place of insecurity and doubt, and made it more and more difficult to escape the further down it went. 
I know you’re thinking: Surely this story must have a happy ending! And yes, it does, but it happens after I run upstairs and throw up in my girlfriend’s bathroom. 
Indeed! I puked out of anxiety. And then I did again the day afterwards. It was mortifying, and it was exactly what those little thoughts in my brain said would happen. So every time I saw my girlfriend after those two days, I got extremely nauseous. Eventually, my psychiatrist told me to take control of those anxious thoughts, and I did, and now I can be around my girlfriend without worrying that I might throw up again. (I’m cringing and laughing as I write this.)
My point is, anxiety sucks. It really does. Especially so when you are in middle or high school, when you are still figuring yourself out, when you miss out on so many good experiences because of those annoying little voices that hijack your thoughts and make horror seem like reality.
I do not have a larger argument here. This is more to express solidarity. To all my anxious teen friends out there: I am not going to tell you ‘Oh, it gets better!’ because what would that do to help? What I am going to do is tell you that I understand, and that you are not the only one. I have definitely improved from my middle school days of missing school due to panic attacks, but I am not perfect. And I am not sure if I ever will be. But what is important is that you know that this is normal, and that this is not just the kind of thing you find on subreddits after hours of searching for a similar situation, for a similar person, for answers. There are a lot of things that make us anxious, a lot of ways in which our anxieties present themselves. But at least we can all find solidarity in the fact that we have all been through it.

Your anxious friend,
Bella