Personal Narrative: Performance Anxiety

If you were to ask me what the scariest part about having anxiety is, my answer to you would be how little is known about it. Mental health is such a feared thing to talk about, yet talking and spreading awareness is the only way to end the stigma.

I have severe “performance anxiety” as my doctor called it, it 's no longer an everyday thing but for a long time it was, it started as being anxious before soccer games or track meets, I mean, nerves is something all athletes face, it 's part of the sport, but something about the way my stomach turned and the way my cereal repulsed me the morning of a big game, that made me realize it was a lot more than just a little pre-game stress.
It took me a long time to realize; realize that something was wrong. It was hard to learn how to cope and how to try and get others to understand. Isn’t that silly? I had to figure out how to make someone else understand a struggle I was going through, because they had it set in their mind that I was just overthinking. …show more content…
But the reality is, it made me sickly anxious in any setting that was out of my comfort zone. The harsh truth to it is, this included things I was excited for; I couldn 't do it, because I would get too scared that something would go wrong or that I would get my hopes up and be