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Is having an Anxiety disorder a good reason to not consider to myself a coward or *****? I was picked on in middle school and high school pretty bad and really regret not standing up for myself back then. Im 41 years old now. Was not diagnosed with social anxiety disorder until around 25 years old so Im pretty darn sure my disorder is the main reason I could not stand up for myself. My symptoms in school were pretty bad. Trembling and shaking in class if I had to give a class presenatation. Or I would simply try to skip class to avoid doing it. Had few friends if any.
Didn't help my mindset any that my dad would call me a ***** and coward for not standing up for myself. Wasant an overall bad farther but on this particular issue he had no sympathy or understanding at all. Guess environment he was raised in you were expected to fight or it was the worst thing ever. Not that I think about it Anxiety disorders have a big genetic component so a lot of it can be blamed on the bad genetic hand he dealt me.
Anyway so I have accepted that with my disorder was the main reason I did not deal with these bullying issues better. Say 75 percent of it. But I still feel that last 25 percent is on me and my fault and that I am a coward. Having a pretty severe social anxiety disorder does not completely let me off the hook. Im sure there are some people who had as had or worse anxiety disorders were able to handle it better. Guess I look back on it now and im still dealing with a lot of guilt and self blame. Any thoughts and can anyone relate. Thank you
You know what I think? I think your dad is not helping. I have always thought of it this way, That our strength is not defined by the way in which we handle people or situations or even how we stand up for ourselves, but In the very idea that we
are VERY strong people for enduring the things that we have had to endure throughout our entire time here on earth. People who have mental illness of any kind, especially anxiety are VERY VERY strong! And you know why? Because we are able to
live with the things that normal people don't. For normal people, it's easy, that's not to say that they don't have struggles in life, but they do not have to go through as much of the struggle that we have had to. Just think of all of the times you have endured so much anxiety. Normal people don't usually have to deal with that. In my opinion, you're a freakin' warrior! We all are. No, we aren't crazy or freaks! We are people who have the ability to survive through these hardships.
In addition to this, we learn. Yeah, we may get pushed down to the ground by our anxiety, our mental ilnesses or even our bullies, but we get up and stronger than ever before! You may have not stood up for yourself in the past (I know I haven't), but
you are learning to.
I am probably in no position to give advice because I'm 20, but I was bullied so bad that I got ptsd. I NEVER stood up for myself and I remember the very first time, in first grade, a boy pushed me down to the ground and I just backed away and told him to leave me alone. That same boy bullied me in 6th grade, Then I was bullied by a girl. She spread rumors about me to the whole school. I was very close to telling the counselor and I almost did, but something held me back. It was this fear that those girls would come back for me and in a worse way than before. Looking back at it, I regret it so much! I now know the importance of standing up for myself, but the thing is, you fail and you learn. Each time you fall you get back up and learn how to deal with it better than you ever have before. I remember that three girls in the hospital where I had been hospitalized had kept trying to slam the doors on my hands and oh man! I got so angry that I called the girl a b#tch right there in front of everyone! I called her out for everything she was doing which included talking trash about me and she got written up! She never messed with me again!
Anyway, I hope you understand what I'm saying. All I know is that you become stronger through each of these encounters with bullies. They push you down, but you have the choice to get up or stay down and let them step all over you. It's up to you.
All that matters is that you stand up for yourself
now, the past is in the past.(it's all just memories in your head) Not even the future is real, until you make it happen.