SteveBlakeBianco
02-07-2009, 05:23 PM
My name is Steve Bianco, I'm a 17 year old high school junior from Southwick, MA 8). I'm interested in getting involved in theatre at my school, I'm a student ambassador to an international leadership program, and I love to write.
All of my life, I've had a history of anxiety. When I was in the 5th grade, I randomly started having anxiety attacks and horrible fears due to watching a history channel special on the holocaust. Eventually, I started developing a fear of dying and what happens to you after you die. This of course was a time of growing, when I began to question religion and society, which pretty much opened the doors for anxiety and fear to waltz in. The anxiety lasted me an entire year, and just eight months after the begining, I was put on Fluvoxomine for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I stayed on that for about three years until the end of my eighth grade year. Immediately when I went off it, anxiety, paranoia, and confusion ensued. For almost a year after, I went through a depression, re-questioning life. After that, I thought i could handle my emotions, have no fear, with the confidence that the anxiety would never return...
But it did...
In December, I started devoloping a fear that I may have contracted a neurodegenerative disease called vCJD. Naturally, its well known that vCJD is very rare, only having afflicted 3 people in the united states whom were originally from a foreign country. But as I began to suspect the disease, the anxiety grew and grew until miraculously, over my school's Christmas Vacation, it went away when I traveled to Florida with my grandparents. But when I came back, I suffered with anxiety horribly, even worse than ever before. I couldnt handle the fear of possibly coming down with such a disturbing disease, and the fact that anxiety was among the earlier symptoms of it, only proliferated the fear. Then, again, miraculously, it went away on January 16th. Afterward, for two weeks, I experienced brain fog and mental confusion, which scared me even more. Everyday, was like torture....I didn't know what to do. I had spoken to my parents about it during the first week of the anxiety, so they contacted a psychiatrist that might be able to help.....
As of now, I feel my cognitive functions returning, my mind becoming sharp, but I DO NOT feel the same. I don't feel as attatched to my thoughts and emotions as I used to, which is scaring me even further. I don't know what to think, my only form of refuge with this has been to constantly go online, find my symptoms and try to find solace in an overhwelming possibility that I don't have a neurodegenerative disease....
I'm sorry if I'm sounding quite hysterical, I just feel so scared and alone and can't seem to find any way out of this...
Thank you for listening
All of my life, I've had a history of anxiety. When I was in the 5th grade, I randomly started having anxiety attacks and horrible fears due to watching a history channel special on the holocaust. Eventually, I started developing a fear of dying and what happens to you after you die. This of course was a time of growing, when I began to question religion and society, which pretty much opened the doors for anxiety and fear to waltz in. The anxiety lasted me an entire year, and just eight months after the begining, I was put on Fluvoxomine for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I stayed on that for about three years until the end of my eighth grade year. Immediately when I went off it, anxiety, paranoia, and confusion ensued. For almost a year after, I went through a depression, re-questioning life. After that, I thought i could handle my emotions, have no fear, with the confidence that the anxiety would never return...
But it did...
In December, I started devoloping a fear that I may have contracted a neurodegenerative disease called vCJD. Naturally, its well known that vCJD is very rare, only having afflicted 3 people in the united states whom were originally from a foreign country. But as I began to suspect the disease, the anxiety grew and grew until miraculously, over my school's Christmas Vacation, it went away when I traveled to Florida with my grandparents. But when I came back, I suffered with anxiety horribly, even worse than ever before. I couldnt handle the fear of possibly coming down with such a disturbing disease, and the fact that anxiety was among the earlier symptoms of it, only proliferated the fear. Then, again, miraculously, it went away on January 16th. Afterward, for two weeks, I experienced brain fog and mental confusion, which scared me even more. Everyday, was like torture....I didn't know what to do. I had spoken to my parents about it during the first week of the anxiety, so they contacted a psychiatrist that might be able to help.....
As of now, I feel my cognitive functions returning, my mind becoming sharp, but I DO NOT feel the same. I don't feel as attatched to my thoughts and emotions as I used to, which is scaring me even further. I don't know what to think, my only form of refuge with this has been to constantly go online, find my symptoms and try to find solace in an overhwelming possibility that I don't have a neurodegenerative disease....
I'm sorry if I'm sounding quite hysterical, I just feel so scared and alone and can't seem to find any way out of this...
Thank you for listening