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My Everyday Zombie Apocalypse My bravest moment was the first time I chickened out of presenting my project for civics class. Now I know that doesn’t seem like a moment to be proud of, but to me it has meaning. Maybe I should explain and give some context first: I have something called Social Anxiety disorder, which basically means that I have a constant, immense fear of judgment from others. From my freshman year to now I've been in a constant battle with myself, and although I failed to present that day, which, of course, was the main goal, looking back on it I notice how much bravery it took for me to even try. It shows how much I wanted to be able to do the things others thought almost nothing of. I wanted so badly to help my situation mentally that I had the courage to attempt to dive into one of my greatest fears: judgement.
I’d say a worthy situation I could put someone in that would equal the emotions I feel when having attention turned to me, such as while presenting to my class or participating in a Socratic Seminar, would probably be of someone that just walked into a room full of bloodthirsty zombies. A bit dramatic given that it's practically a guaranteed death type of situation, but that is how I’ve been treating school for the past 2 years. I’d like to put you in my shoes, Thrilling right? You walk in, you’d probably think about slipping back into where you came, but before you go through with it, every single head turns. Too late, there is no going back. All eyes are on you, yet nothing is happening and for whatever reason that is adding more anxiety to the sea of anxiety you are already drowning in. You can't think, you can't breathe, you can't think because you can't breathe. You can't handle the situation, everything is too much. You want to scream and run out the room, you NEED to get out of that situation. All you can think of is to run. Go, start running before you start having second thoughts. Once you start running though, there's no going back. That's all I was doing for such a long time to the point where that was the only way I knew how to handle those situations.
One thing I failed to mention is that I’m currently yet to be formally diagnosed with SAD, which is due to many reasons. In my sophomore year I went to one of my school counselors because my mum had already rejected me, not that we could afford therapy anyways, so I had nowhere to go. It was a terrible experience, I would even say that I left the room in more distress and with less control over my emotions that I walked in with. Regardless, I would still say that this would be another example of my bravest moments. When it comes to overcoming fears, in a lot of instances, the hardest part of it is seeking support or asking for help in order to overcome those fears. Just thinking about going into that room made me want to scream, but I did it anyway because I knew I had to, I needed to, regardless of whether I wanted to or not. The thought of what it *might* allow me to do in the future, before I went in the room of course, outweighed all my fears. I’ve been in bands for almost 5 years now and they’ve always said that “the parts of the song people are going to remember the most are the beginning and the end”, I’ve learnt that that isn’t only true in a musical sense. To this day, all I remember from that experience is how it ended. I was sitting in a chair drowning in silence waiting to be dismissed because, even though I had so much more to talk about, I just wanted to get out of there. All I could think about is how uncomfortable I felt, how vulnerable I felt, how hopeless I felt. It was like I was being opened up and dissected. All I could think about is how much I am sweating, how much I smell because of that sweat, how I want to scream at her, rip my hair out and tell her that she isn’t helping. Tell her how much I need her to say something, anything. But all she’s doing is sitting, staring at me. Judging me.
That put me off from seeking out support until my junior year. That's when I realized that it's not an end of the world situation like a zombie apocalypse, it’s just normal life, it's just a little harder for me. It only feels that way because I'm thinking of it in that way, and that there is no other light for me to see it in. I’m the one making it bad, I’m the villain in my own story. I think I’ve known this all along, but part of me didn't want to know it. I've just been turning around and blaming it on other people, because it's easier that way. While I’m still scared, I still run away sometimes, I still avoid situations, I now see it in a different light. Instead of seeing it as a zombie apocalypse, I see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to push myself to prove that I can do it. I have a lot of moments that I could describe as my “bravest”, most of them being nothing like what others would choose to be under that label, but that shouldn't make someone think any less of me. We all have our own zombie apocalypse.
