I ripped up napkins and shredded straw wrappers at every table I sat at.
It was frightening and confusing, and I knew I was broken; the light-switch of a dead bulb.
Although I lacked the emotional vocabulary, there was something else preventing me from speaking out: shame.
Getty / Peter Cade
It was mine alone and it meant something about me that I didnt want to know.
There was more dread in me than body weight.
The doom I experienced felt like an inescapable humidity, relentless and emotionally dehydrating.
Jon Pack
I waited, preparing myself for this inevitable horror by worrying.
Anxietyremoves a persons sense of control, so that your body is no longer yours.
Best to stay home.
I bit until I went too low and had to tamp down the sharp pain with a Band-Aid.
I practiced smoking until I could inhale without coughing and gagging.
I practiced until I was so advanced I could blow smoke rings and French inhale.
When you smoke as a kid, youre a cool kid.
And to be cool means to act like youre invulnerable.
And to prove youre invulnerable, you try whats offered, even if you are terrified.
What you dont see happening though, is your own metamorphosis.
You miss the ways in whichyouare now, to others, the intimidating one.
Even teachers were convinced I was more sophisticated than I was because I was a smoker.
But still, in between cigarettes, my fears leaked in.
I needed something stronger.
Soon enough, instead of eating, I was doing coke.
Instead of sleeping, I was doing coke.
Instead of going to school, doing my homework, thinking about colleges, I was doing coke.
Being good to myself, caring for my body and mind requires a willpower I practically have to outsource.
Making healthy choices has been much more difficult for me to learn.
Just getting to the gym was an existential battle.
So, when I was offered a free session with a healer, I went.
She asked what I wanted to work on and I told her I wanted to stop resisting being healthy.
She had me lie down on a vibroacoustic sound bed.
She controlled the frequencies to harmonize the cells in my body and brain, she said.
She began to ask me questions.
What did your panic feel like in your body when you were a child?
Some days the scribbles tried to scratch me out, other times days they surrounded me.
Did you feel as though your head was disconnected from your body?
I spent most of my life in my head, always afraid to sink down.
I knew I didnt want to live that way anymore.
Its still a challenge, but it works, and its soothing.
Now I self-soothe by going toward, not avoiding.
Amanda Stern was born in New York City and raised in Greenwich Village.
Shes the author ofThe Long Hauland 11 books for children written under the pseudonyms Fiona Rosenbloom and AJ Stern.
Her memoir,Little Panic,was released in June.
