Anxious Amber

 

I’m around 12 years old. I’m sitting on the ground in a circle with my classmates. We have to go around and say a word that describes us with the same initial as our name.

 

All I can think is awesome, or amazing and I’m neither of those things, I couldn’t say either of those words!

 

Someone else said amazing. Oh no! I guess I can’t use that one.

 

Oh god, my turn! ‘I…don’t know’. Reprieve. They’ll come back to me after lunch.

 

Lunchtime: What word? What. Word. Think.

 

In the circle again. Still don’t know. Suggestions. Someone said awesome. They’re just saying that because it starts with an A. No-one actually thinks I’m awesome.

 

I say it. ‘I’m Awesome Amber’.  I lie.

Next person.

 

Why didn’t I use the word anxious though?

 

I didn’t really understand my anxiety. All I knew was that I worried a lot and I wasn’t ‘normal’. And that’s all I wanted to be. Normal.

 

I wanted to talk to people without feeling awkward (another word I could’ve used!). I wanted to volunteer to read a piece of writing in front of my class. I wanted to do a lot of things. But I was frozen.

 

I was frozen for a long time.

 

Right now, though, I’ve… thawed. I still get cold days, and I think I might freeze again. I still feel awkward talking to people and I really do not want to read this out in a crowded room, but then I remember:

 

I get the rubbish bins in. I cook over a gas stove top. I walk my dog around the block. I FREAKING drive a car (never thought this would happen)! These are big things for me. Now I can say I understand my anxiety better, no, I accept my anxiety better.

 

 I’m Anxious Amber.