Several years ago, seemingly out of nowhere, my mind sort of betrayed me.
I had developed an anxiety disorder that was, in a word, crippling.
'Panic disorder', my doctor called it.
In a nutshell, my mind would play games on me. When explaining it to people now, I sometimes say to imagine that heightened anxiety or fear you get when something scares you (a feeling that usually dissipates after you realize you aren't in real danger) as a permanent feeling. Like the pit you get in your stomach during the free-fall of a rollercoaster ride, except it never goes away.
At the time, I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone about what I was feeling because I thought no one would understand- I mys...