A little while ago, someone I've met since being at uni asked me about my anxiety. They wondered why, during the first year of university it hadn't been there, why I'd seemed so much more happy and more confident?
My alarm bells started ringing. I had no idea! Why had the anxiety come back? What was I doing wrong? Did they think I was a liar because it had seemingly appeared form nowhere? What was I supposed to say? I couldn't understand what was going on in my own head.
I've told my uni friends on more than one occasion how very unhappy I was during sixth form. I never really spoke about it to anyone. My parents could see I was obviously not myself, but I never really expressed exactly what was going on - I didn't know how to, at the time I thought I was losing my marbles.
Reflecting now, I can see that with painful teenage shyness and under the pressure of A Levels at a school where not attending uni was an unfathomable possibility and the near-absence of a social life, anxiety had taken hold and (it's more than likely that) a bout of depression had come with it. But it didn't last forever.
Sixth Form became a bit of a benchmark: never become that unhappy again. When I got into art college to study my for my Foundation Diploma I was determined to be happier; I was finally done with a school I had hated. I had more freedom both academically and personally.
Then uni came. More freedom, more people, a new start and another step forward doing something I loved. But slowly and slowly, the happiness seemed to fade away, and it university became a much harder reality and anxiety kicking back in only made life harder.
Fast forward six months, two counselling sessions, six weeks of CBT, doctors appointments, several prescriptions for beta blockers and many, many tearful phone calls to my mum, here we are.
With a change so gradual it practically wasn't noticeable, I realised that I've slowly, slowly started feeling more like myself again. Feeling like a human being and not a dead weight dressed in a jumper and jeans is a bloody wonderful thing.
But a week or so ago, when I thought about the question (one of the many joys of anxiety, remembering things people say to you months later) I remembered something. The crocodile.
A while back I came across an animation named In Between (which you can watch here) all about social anxiety. In short, a young woman getting plagued by a pain-in-the-arse crocodile who acted as the physical embodiment of her anxieties. She struggles with him, pushing him away again and again, only to have him trip her up or snap again until eventually, after losing her temper with him, they both regret their actions and calm down.
When I first watched the clip some time ago I got frustrated. I thought, 'Well why's he still there? Surely if she's got him under control, he should just vanish? Will he never go away?!'.
With a bit more time and a few watches of the video, I've realised that the crocodile is never going away. And that's ok.
I thought back to my friend's question, where did the anxiety seemingly pop out of nowhere?
Now, I've started to understand a little bit better. I don't believe it ever really went away. It had just become a bit quieter.
There will be days when my crocodile's being a nuisance, or worse, gaining ground and snapping at my ankles, but I know that there are ways to keep him in check when I need to, and support to help out when I can't do it by myself. I know that it's possible to keep it in check because I've done it before, which means that I can do it again this time.
I still don't know the exact reason why the anxiety flared up again, but at the end of the day, if the crocodile's not going away, you might as well make friends with him.
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