For Elijah Fowler, the anxiety began in seventh grade, about a year after he had started taking medication for his ADHD. His grades had improved. And he noticed an uncanny clarity and focus, which became helpful when he started fighting others as a way to manage the anxiety and aggression that became otherwise unavoidable.
Fowler remembers waves of aggression coupled with debilitating sadness that left him in tears at school and at home. It caught the attention of a school counselor, while scaring Fowler and his own mother.
