What I've learned since moving away from home

Being the baby of the family, I guess you could have considered me "spoiled" or "coddled" or whatever it is you want to refer to me as. I'm not even going to try and deny that these speculations aren't true, because they are. At least they were (phil would like to argue that it still is "are" and not "were" HA!)

If you really know me, or if you've known me for any part of my life, you would know that I have been battling a pretty extreme form of anxiety disorder (it was WAY more extreme when I was younger than it is now). I had my first panic attack when I was 10 years old, and ever since then it has just been a part of my life that I've been constantly battling. My parents have been my rock and foundation since all of this started and have tried many different treatments and medicine and doctors.  Medicine worked some, but it didn't seem to be the clear answer.

I took myself off of medicine about 4 or 5 years ago and have been courageously pushing myself through anxiety attacks and have been really working hard on doing this on my own.
You can imagine what my brain was going through the last couple of days before I moved to South Carolina and the first few days I arrived there, which was about 2 years ago. Panic is kind of an understatement. I understand that everyone gets nervous before big events in their lives, and have somewhat of a freak out, but mine was pretty intense. I have been absolutely fortunate to have a husband that is so understanding of the whole situation and has NOT treated me like a broken person because of it. He never gives in to my anxiety and only helps me push through it.

Moving to South Carolina has been one of the greatest accomplishments to moving past my anxiety. Grocery stores use to be the bane of my existence, seriously I couldn't even go all the way in the back of the store without having a panic attack (talk about controlling your life!). But moving away from everything that I've ever known as a comfort helped more than I can imagine. I had to learn to become independent and stop relying on mommy and daddy for everything, because Phil sure as heck wasn't going to be my coddler. I had to learn that it was absolutely UNFAIR for me and my anxiety to control what someone else could and couldn't do with me around.
A good example of this is when Phil and I were planning our honeymoon. He kept going back to my fear of planes and flying and how maybe we should go somewhere closer. I felt so awful that this thought could even cross his mind. How could a disorder of mine control a destination that Phil could possibly want to see? I felt awful and told him that I wasn't going to let my anxiety control our honeymoon or ANY part of our lives and I would get over whatever plane ride we had to take. And I did, and I was fine, and we enjoyed every minute of our honeymoon without an attack.

Becoming independent and becoming more responsible for my actions has absolutely changed my life. I can't tell you the last time I had a full blown panic attack and how every day life is no longer a challenge for me and I LOVE IT. I try to explain to other people who experience the same thing I do/did/have/had (whatever you want to call it) that sometimes medicine isn't always the best solution. Medicine pushed me into the right direction, but it had to come from ME to do things that were out of my comfort zone, such as move away from home, get married, and change my life!

If you are still reading this, Bravo! I'm sure it isn't that interesting to many people, but I know a lot of people who deal with anxiety/OCD on so many different platforms. I figured putting my story out there may help someone, even if it's to see that someone else completely understands what they are going through.