Anxious Minds, Divergent Outcomes

All right, hi guys, this is going to be the first person that I'm interviewing today.

I'm gonna be comparing my cousin Olivia.

She's 17 years old to my 83 year old grandma and their experiences with anxiety and what they currently feel in comparing the two.

So you can introduce yourself, Olivia.

Hi, I'm Olivia.

I'm Sarah's cousin.

I'm a junior in high school and I've grown up around the Crystal Lake area my whole life

and I'm currently a dancer.

Awesome.

So kind of diving into this, I know that a lot of people that you know have experienced anxiety in your life as early as life is to me and you. So can you describe when the first time you kind of felt anxiety, whether it's dance or school or your future, what is like the first kind of trigger for you?

The first thing I could think of is like the night before like the first day of school or

something important going on. Just like you're excited but you're also really nervous and like scared especially going into high school. I felt like that. Just like overwhelmed and like really nervous. Yeah, yeah those first days of school feelings are terrible. You don't know who you're gonna run into. You don't know if your teachers are gonna be nice. You don't know you don't know what's gonna go on. So I totally feel that and I've experienced that and going into high school too.

And it gets worse in college. It gets worse in college. And so do you have you ever dealt with stress in dance before with you know I know it's kind of like the first that's the most important thing in your life and what is kind of the main trigger in dance that you've experienced with anxiety?

I get really stressed out if I'm not able to figure out like combinations or just like

steps that we're doing in enough time. Like I feel like I'm gonna get behind or before performance. I get really stressed out and nervous about like being like doing my best and performing as well as

I can relate because it's a lot of pressure and you put so much time into it that you like can't help but be stressed about how your performance is gonna be. Yeah, yeah for sure and you don't know how it's gonna turn out but in the end it always works itself out. That's what I've dealt with in dance as well. It's just like you do it and you feel so relieved and you know you did your best and so it teaches you such a big lesson as well with just like dealing with your emotions and dealing with all that.

And then also when I was in high school, I still right now have no exact pinpoint

I want I want to do in the future

But do you have any like dreams or aspirations that you have that may cause a little bit of stress?

I really want to go into dance professionally So the stress wouldn't really go away

It would probably increase because I'm gonna be in bigger places with bigger crowds bigger audience and just like more expectations of me

So it's just it's just gonna bars in our eyes. So yeah, and the dance industry is so like

Judgmental when you don't want it to be at all like you feel like you're getting judged all the time and it's just like it's really overwhelming

Have you ever hit like a really if you can remember a time when you hit like a really stressful moment in your high school career?

So far where you're like I give up like I can't do this anymore Like or any classes that you've had a hard time with anything like that. Yeah, I really struggle academically

I have a lot of trouble with math and sometimes I get like to the point where I like I just stop everything I'm doing and I just I do give up on some things sometimes because It's so stressful because like you want to be able to pass but you also like you're unsure of what you're doing. It's just

Yeah, a lot on

Yeah, yeah, that was exactly for me too. I

Would feel like I would want to give up so many times like I can't take this class

Like there's absolutely no way and even with COVID like in school like in my room

I just felt so isolated and trapped and I'm like, I just want to travel. I just want to do something else

I believe I just want to dance or something. I don't know. I can't I can't do that either because I'm trapped in my room

Yeah, so totally just that school stresses

It feels like it's feels like it's the end of the world

But you see videos on TikTok of like we're just on a floating rock and you're like totally!

Are there any kind of misconceptions or stereotypes about anxiety that you wish people would understand better for people who don't take it seriously?

My mom has really bad anxiety and some stereotypes are like people are like, oh it's not that bad, you can handle it, but it is really bad. It's hard to control, you really can't control what's happening to you when you have extreme anxiety and it attacks like if people don't think it's as bad as it is, it's pretty bad.

Yeah, I just later on in this kind of segment I go on to interview my sister's boyfriend and he's in law school right now and I've just learned how much goes into it and he has had so many panic attacks.

And I didn't even expect him to have panic attacks like that because he's just such a chill person, but it's just like crazy how some things just change you on the dot and you just feel like there's no way out.

And so people, and so understanding anxiety and the inner workings of the brain is really important in order to understand other people.

And so what advice would you give to someone in your same position who might be struggling with similar feelings of anxiety, whether they're a dancer or in the same kind of classes?

What advice would you give someone else?

Probably just to know it's going to pass, nothing is permanent, nothing's going to last forever and there's so many ways that you can relieve this and just breathe simple things, but it really does help.

Exactly. Well, thank you so much for coming on the little podcast segment we got.

Yeah. Super, super helpful. I'm going to be comparing you to our 83 year old grandmother Elaine, so that will be very interesting.

I know she has complete different side of anxiety. She does not have anything dealing with school or dance or any futuristic stuff going on, but she is dealing with her children and that's as anxiety inducing as it is itself.

Thank you so much for sharing your life.

Thank you.