I was an anxious teenager. For me, the issue was always worry: excessive, awful, irrational thoughts that started when I was about 10 and reached their crescendo when I was an undergraduate, when things fell apart entirely and I needed a lot of treatment to be able to function again. Before I got help, I had no language to describe how I felt and no adults around me who understood what was happening.
As the public conversation about anxiety continues to swell, I’ve been asking myself: would I have been better off as an anxious teenager today? Despite all the recent awareness-raising efforts, the reduction in stigma, the lessons in schools – and despite how hard it was navigating my own anxiety in silence – I find myself answering “no”.
