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Life was going great. I was the starting point guard on two basketball teams and my coach had already talked to the high school coach about me. At school I was on the A-B honor roll and at church I was someone they could count on for anything. I was always there ready to help.

It all started the last quarter of my 8th grade year. I had hives really bad. One night they were so bad that I could feel them in my throat and I freaked out. I swore my throat was closing up and that I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to die. I remember screaming at my brother for no reason and my mom was calmly getting her things to take me to the emergency room. They tested my air passage in my throat and it was perfect and the doctor looked down my throat and there were hives, so they gave me a shot and sent me home. That was the first time I had ever felt like that. I was panic stricken.

The hives eventually went away, even though I missed my Jr. High graduation. Through the summer I continued to have panic attacks on and off.

The first day of high school I was sitting in my Spanish class and I thought I was going to faint so I went to the nurse's office. I laid down for awhile and then she sent me back to class. From then on I was scared to go to my Spanish class because I thought I was going to feel that way. Soon it began to happen in some of my other classes.

I began to get sick a lot and I started hanging out with my friends a little less. I missed so much school.

Church was always something that I looked forward to until the first time I had a panic attack there. I couldn't sit still, my hands were always clammy, my heart was racing whenever I wasn't at home and I constantly felt dizzy and light-headed.

I kept getting sick and feeling like I was going to faint and I was sure that there was something seriously wrong with me. I remember thinking,"What if I have cancer? Or a brain tumor?" I was in the doctor's office almost every week. I went to countless specialists and I even visited the emergency room several more times. I had bone scans, CT scans, tons of
X-rays, and an MRI. They all showed that I was perfectly healthy --- so what on earth was going on?

I began to fight my mom in the mornings before school. I was scared to go to school because I knew that I was going to feel that weird way. Every time I felt that way, I quickly stopped doing whatever I was doing. I eventually did nothing. I went to church but I sat on a bench outside because I couldn't sit still. I had to know where all the bathrooms and the exits were "just in case."

At school I kept getting in trouble, and I was always being called down to the office for skipping classes. The discipline officer at my school knew me by name. Everyone thought I was just being difficult and a rebel.
My mom talked to a lady at church who was a counselor and she worked with some students at my school. I started meeting weekly with her and she was teaching me ways to relax myself.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year was awful, and my sophomore year was even worse. I started having panic attacks almost constantly. I ran out of several of my classes many times, and I was always going to the nurse and the counselors. My grades went from all A's and B's to D's and F's. I barely showed up at all that year. My counselor told me that if I didn't start attending my classes my mom could be arrested. I was so terrified of that happening, everyday I wondered if the police were going to show up. It's a miracle that my mom didn't lose her job. She was several hours late each day, and my brother was late to school everyday because of me, too. My friends at school kept asking me what was wrong. They said I acted depressed. The truth was that I was depressed. I had no idea what was going on or why it was happening to me. I prayed everyday for God to heal me and to take the fear out of my life, but it never happened.

I completely stopped going to youth group and people at church were talking about me. An older lady went up to my mom one Sunday and said that she heard that I quit school and asked if it was true. I was sure that my family was embarrassed of me.

One morning my mom tried to get me up for school and I put up a fight as usual and we yelled and she got stressed out, and I cried like I did everyday. Then I heard my mom in the next room bawling. It tore me up inside, and it still does to even think about it. It's the worst thing in the whole world to hear your parent cry because of you. The worst part was I couldn't help it. When I was afraid it completely took over my body and mind. I was in fear constantly.

Almost everyday people kept trying to give me advice and tell me to "just trust God." They gave me verse after verse after verse. I read them and wrote them down, but I just couldn't seem to put them into practice. Trusting God is so much easier to say than to do.

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