For as long as I could remember, I had always been a carefree person. Whenever I would encounter a stressful event or be put into a situation that would normally cause other people anxiety, I was easily able to brush it off and not let it affect me. However, in the past five years I have noticed that my stress levels and anxiety have significantly gone up. The smallest things would cause anxiety, I noticed that I would feel down and depressed without any obvious cause, and overall I felt like I was emotionally unstable. Because I felt like there was no logical reason why I should be feeling anxious/depressed, I began to investigate why I felt this way. I sought out therapy from a licensed psychologist, tried to exercise often, and clean up my diet. These things definitely helped, but I still had underlying feelings of anxiety and depression. Things finally came to a head when I had my first panic attack at work. It was any ordinary day, however my anxiety peaked up and I ended up rescheduling all of my patients for that day because I felt like I could not take it. Eventually, I ran a blood test on myself for neurological autoimmunity which came up positive – I felt like I finally had some answers why I had been feeling this way for the past few years. After putting myself on a strict autoimmune diet, healing my gut, continuing positive lifestyle choices such as exercising and meditation my mental health has drastically improved. Though there are times where I still feel anxiety, I feel as if I have control over my life once again. Living with mental health challenges has instilled in me a passion for helping others who feel lost and uncertain about what to do about their mental health issues.
