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Ep. 22: How to cope with Anxiety and Panic Attacks as a Teenager
270 Plays4 years ago
Victoria Metal is a music teacher from North Carolina. At 25, she’s one of the youngest guests on Teenage Kicks, and much closer in age to my teenagers than she is to me. She talks about something I think is common to lots of teenagers, and adults, Depression.
Teenage depression and anxiety facts
Depression and anxiety among teens is common, with nearly a third presenting with symptoms of an anxiety disorder by the age of 18, with anxiety in teenage girls more than twice as common as it is in boys. Teenage years are some of the most stressful times of our lives, with the burden of needing to succeed academically, and social pressures adding to the intense experience of physical development and puberty.
What causes anxiety in teens?
Victoria describes what kickstarted her anxiety – school pressures, friendship issues and overwhelm. Just normal stuff, that so many families will relate to. As a young girl she spent hours on the floor of her bedroom listening to music, just to escape from her emotions. She also tells me about how she tried to ask for help, but didn’t manage to get the support she needed in time to prevent what happened later.
Why teenage mental health needs to be taken seriously
I was struck by how well Victoria coped as a teenager. Talking to her reminded me that being 18 doesn’t make you an adult, and that young people still need emotional support as they begin adult life.
Panic attacks and anxiety
Victoria did eventually get the support she needed, but not before suffering panic attacks at work, and eventually going back to the beginning, and working out the roots of her anxiety with her mother.
Whilst panic attacks in teens aren’t usual, Victoria’s story serves as a warning that teen mental health is as important to take care of as physical health to ensure symptoms don’t worsen further down the line.
Once you’ve finished listening, I’d urge you to go and download this episode of Victoria’s own podcast, The Intention Seekers. In it she reads through her graduation speech, which gave me goosebumps. “You are going to be missed” she told her class, and this is the sentiment she’d offer to those going through the anxiety and self-doubt that many teenagers experience:
You matter.
You are loved.
Keep going.
What can parents do?
For parents, this conversation with Victoria made me realise how difficult it is to identify and express your feelings at this age, and that actually, asking for help might cost them a LOT! Have a listen to how she first expressed her panic at the state of her emotional health at the age of 12 – it’s a little bit heartbreaking.
Find Victoria here
Further reading and support
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Teenage Challenges
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager. I'm Helen Wills and every week I talk to someone who had a difficult experience in their teens but came out the other side in a good place and went on to make a real success of their life. Does your child struggle with anxiety or depression?
00:00:30
Speaker
I think teenage years are some of the hardest, possibly the hardest, years that we go through. The workload on kids in secondary school is intense and that's before we even get to the social pressures of friendships, being cool or not cool, figuring out who is cool and figuring out who you actually are before you head out into the world.
Meet Victoria: Teacher and Mental Health Advocate
00:00:53
Speaker
add in hormones and exam stress and I think it's fair to say that all kids are coping with levels of stress in their teenage years that are much bigger than they've had before. My guest today is Victoria and we're going to talk about her experiences of depression as a young teen, developing into anxiety and panic attacks as a young adult.
00:01:15
Speaker
And now, Victoria, at 25, she's my youngest guest so far. I'm much closer in age to my teenagers than she is to me, their mum. So I'm pretty confident she's going to appeal to teenagers as well as parents. So mums and dads, if Victoria's story sounds similar to your child's, sit them down and make them listen. Buy them AirPods if you have to, because this is going to be a good one.
00:01:42
Speaker
Victoria is a teacher from New York with her own successful podcast where she talks a lot about improving mental health. I'm hoping she's going to share some brilliant tips with us today. So Victoria, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to have you here. So you're in New York, right? How are things there?
00:02:03
Speaker
I am actually from New York. I'm currently in North Carolina, so right now it is just hot here. Oh, okay. Do you know what? It's unseasonally hot here. We're looking at over 30 degrees today, which is really, really hot for us. How hot was it there?
00:02:20
Speaker
We, I went out for a walk this morning and we, I'm not even sure how it converts to Celsius because we're working in Fahrenheit over here in the States. Um, but it definitely hit around like 70 ish on my walk this morning at seven o'clock. So it's seven. It's, it's going to get hot today.
00:02:37
Speaker
Yeah it's uncomfortable at night isn't it and you have to get out early if you're gonna walk. Do you have air conditioning? I do thank goodness. Oh see we never get hot for long enough here to make it worthwhile installing air conditioning so we just sweat the whole time. It's joyful. I've just picked up the wrong piece of paper. I've got so so many questions for you Victoria.
Family Dynamics and Early Signs of Depression
00:03:02
Speaker
Tell us just a little bit just to set the scene about your life growing up, your family, your mom and dad. Did you have siblings? Yeah. Um, I grew up in a pretty affluent neighborhood. Didn't realize that until I grew up, how fortunate I really was. I grew up with my mom and my dad and I have an older sister. She's about three years older.
00:03:26
Speaker
Growing up, we did not get along at all, and she knew I was very emotional. We were sisters, so we didn't physically fight, but she would say, I'm not gonna play with you unless you do this or you make the Polly Pockets do this or something like that. And it always got me so upset, and I always felt like I was the one that was getting in trouble.
00:03:52
Speaker
But our relationship is so much better now as adults I think that it really changed when she went off to college and I was still at home So that definitely changed the family dynamic, but I've always been close with all of my family members My dad is an introvert like me and my mom and my sister are pretty extroverted so it's a nice healthy balance of
00:04:15
Speaker
dinner time conversation when I have someone who can say okay Victoria's trying to say something sometimes I would actually have to raise my hand to get in in the conversation but overall it was... Oh my god you're making me laugh sorry I'm interrupting but everything you're saying is my family except we have a younger a younger boy and an older girl and my daughter has a strong character so does my husband they're extroverts me and him are introverts and he really struggles
00:04:44
Speaker
to get his say and I never said anything I just spend my time trying to give him a bit of spotlight occasionally yeah and that's that's really important like my dad would would get everybody to be quiet because I would never butt in and I would never try to talk over anybody because things were moving so fast I was just trying to keep up so when I had something to say usually it wasn't even relevant by the time I got around to say it so
00:05:10
Speaker
Family conversations, I mean, even extended family conversations, I'm usually the listener rather than the person who's leading the conversation, but I'm totally cool with that. Like the introverted side of me really wants to observe and make sure that it's a safe space to speak as opposed to kind of dive right in and then, you know, figure out later that it might not be a safe place to speak.
00:05:36
Speaker
Right that's really good to hear because I do sometimes worry that he feels like he doesn't have the space and time to say what he needs but maybe yeah maybe that's just who he is, we'll see he's only 13 but it's a really important age isn't it? I was listening to your podcast this morning about your story of anxiety
00:05:59
Speaker
And people listening should definitely, I'll put the link in the show notes, you should definitely go and listen to Victoria's podcast. But you were saying that it was middle school that things really wouldn't started to not be so great for you? Or was it before that? Actually, before you start, can you tell me what age middle school is? Because in America, the whole system's very different for the numbers.
00:06:27
Speaker
When I started middle school, I believe I was 12 years old. So we have the sixth, seventh and eighth grade was considered middle school. So I spent maybe years like 12 to like 14 and a half, 15 in middle school before we went on to the upper four grades in high school. So the beginning of middle school, I was about 12 years old. Okay. And the depression that you talked about,
Impact of Mother's Illness on Mental Health
00:06:56
Speaker
When did that start for you?
00:06:59
Speaker
Now that I think about it, I believe that it was probably the year before when I was still in elementary school. We had a lot going on in my family at the time. Fortunately, everyone is healthy right now. But my mom was going through a lot in terms of her health to the point that we actually had her sister and my cousin came to live with us for a little while because mom was in the hospital. She had to have surgery for colon cancer.
00:07:28
Speaker
And she's doing fine now. Everything is wonderful and we are so thankful. But as a fifth grader, that was something I didn't understand. All I knew was that mom wasn't at home and someone else had to take care of me. And when mom came home, she wasn't able to take care of me yet. I had to kind of take care of her.
00:07:53
Speaker
So I think that's where I got a little bit confused even of what my role was in the household. And I felt like I had to grow up pretty quickly. And it carried into middle school absolutely because unfortunately she had to go back to the hospital for the same reason and had the same surgery again because the cancer came back.
00:08:15
Speaker
So all of a sudden I'm in sixth grade and dealing with things that first off I didn't really know about and second were really affecting my family to the point that I didn't know what to do with my emotions. So there definitely was a big event
00:08:34
Speaker
But I also think that there was other stuff going on, like normal middle school things, the pressure to fit in, the pressure to have the right friends, the pressure to have the right clothes and all of that. So there was there was a lot. Yeah. We did you realize the seriousness of what was happening to your mom? Did she? Did you? Was cancer explained to you? Was it scary? It was.
00:09:01
Speaker
I don't know if it was ever really explained in a way that a child would understand. Like I said, my dad is an introvert and he also really does not like confrontation, just like me.
00:09:15
Speaker
very non-confrontational. And I think he wanted to shield us as best as he could. And I had questions that I wanted to ask, but I didn't know how to ask them because the family was in so much turmoil. So I knew that it was bad.
00:09:33
Speaker
Um, but I didn't know, you know, how much stress my dad was under. I wasn't quite sure why my aunt had to come live with us. Um, I knew that I had my cousin as a new playmate, so that was really awesome. But I wasn't quite understanding all of the logistics of what was happening. Just that mom wasn't there to take care of me. Yeah. Yeah. And that's really unsettling. Well, it's unsettling at any age, but at that age when you're
00:10:00
Speaker
you're coming up to changing school and the hormones are starting to kick in. You need stability, don't you, as a kid? But then so many kids do not have that. And that's why this is such an important conversation, I think. So you were already starting to feel, how did it feel? You've said that you identified depression at quite a young age. How did it feel physically for you?
00:10:29
Speaker
It's very interesting because as an adult and having my diagnosis come 10 years after I started feeling these things, I can look back with a very different perspective.
00:10:44
Speaker
It didn't feel and that was the kind of crazy thing. There's multiple sections of my life where I cannot recall what the emotions actually were because I was disassociating so
00:11:00
Speaker
badly at that point so like in my podcast that you that you referenced one of my coping mechanisms in middle school was to come home and literally lay on the floor in my room and try not to feel the emotions because they were so strong and that now that I think about it was
00:11:23
Speaker
such a big disassociation thing. I also think of, I had a lot of friends in middle school, like don't get me wrong, I think I almost had too many that I wasn't able to make those really deep connections when I really needed to. I had a couple, but I really wanted to have more.
00:11:41
Speaker
I can remember sitting at my friend's houses, and there would be like 30 or so people when we got together. And about 30 minutes before we would have to go home, or if it was time for us to get picked up, I would start disassociating, and I would actually see myself in the third person, kind of like looking down as someone from the corner of the room.
00:12:06
Speaker
I would see myself actually disassociating because I was getting ready to go back to that space in my house where I didn't want to feel these strong emotions anymore. So I was mentally setting myself up for that. So yeah, that's a lot of information to swallow. And as an adult, like,
00:12:25
Speaker
I know what I was doing now, but as a kid, it would be, oh, Victoria's kind of like going to her place now. You should probably leave her alone because this is how she gets towards the end of a get together. And my friends realized it and I was like.
00:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, they totally knew. And I don't know if they knew that it was related to a depression or a disassociation. I don't think we all had the vocabulary to explain that at that point. But it was definitely something that was recognizable for my friends. And they started becoming that support system because I didn't know where else to go. That's so good that you did have them. But I'm fascinated by
00:13:09
Speaker
So, was going out with your friends felt normal and good and then going back home felt...
00:13:17
Speaker
upsetting, scary, frightening, bad? It wasn't necessarily scary, frightening, bad, because like I said, I had great relationships with my parents. But I think it was it was setting myself up, setting my brain up to be alone in the silence. Because when I was in the silence, that's when all of the crazy thoughts would start of you're not worth it. Did people really want to spend time with you today? Did they invite you out of pity?
00:13:44
Speaker
And it would kind of go in a circle from there. So instead of letting that fully attack when I got home, I kind of eased myself into it almost. Right. And my friends, you know, they kind of just said, OK, this is how she gets. And it was more of a she's not a nighttime person. She's getting tired rather than.
00:14:07
Speaker
Oh, she's disassociating and this is how she's coping. But none of us knew that at the time. No, so they didn't get it, but they were understanding of how you were. Yes, they were very understanding. And sometimes I wish that they had kind of pulled me a little more to not go to that space. But again, it wasn't their responsibility. They were also 12 and 13. We didn't know.
00:14:35
Speaker
that's just kind of how i was dealing with it yeah totally i was going to say at that age kids don't have the emotional maturity and even further on to understand that there may be something deeper going on with their friends and they may need something from them they just don't they don't have the the maturity that's it they don't have emotional maturity for it
00:14:59
Speaker
I asked you that question because the way you describe anxiety in your podcast is very physical and how you identify your
Social Media and Academic Pressures on Teens
00:15:07
Speaker
stress physically, but that's a retrospective thing, right? Yes. I don't really know if I identified what was going on at the time. I knew that something was wrong. Like as the years went on, I knew that I wasn't feeling quite right.
00:15:23
Speaker
And to kind of get into where I asked for help when I finally realized I needed that, I did have a very close friend who I also mentioned on the podcast. She is not religious at all, but she said, I'm coming to church with you because our youth group was actually having a presentation on mental health.
00:15:45
Speaker
And I said I have to go and I need you to come with me because at this point I'd already been throwing a lot on. My friends we were now. Later on in middle school in this part of the story but I've been throwing a lot of emotions at my friends which also wasn't fair like what where I really needed to be.
00:16:07
Speaker
was in therapy but I kind of used my friends as my therapist and years later you know realized that they had a lot going on too but I was so stuck in what I was dealing with that I didn't even realize. Yeah yeah that's really fascinating to think about actually I think that's something that teenagers
00:16:27
Speaker
need to hear because I think kids say and do a lot to each other and it isn't intentional in terms of being bad kids come away from things and go oh my god and she did that and he said that and as an adult you can look at it and go
00:16:47
Speaker
yeah i know that's because they've got something going on not because of how they feel about you don't take it personally but kids take everything personally and i think it's a really good reminder
00:16:59
Speaker
that sometimes they need to just remember that it's not about them. Yeah and I took a lot of things personally when I was younger and kind of like felt like the world was out to get me that was another that was kind of another section of what happened was the world's out to get me why is it always happening to me but you know
00:17:22
Speaker
That wasn't necessarily true. I don't think I was helping my cause because I was so stuck in my emotions. But again, that's a lot of hindsight and retrospect going on there. Yeah. And I think it's really common, really common to think that everybody's against you, to worry about everything. But it is something that needs to be tackled. Young, I know because I've, it's taken me, I'm 53 now, it's taken me until very recently to start
00:17:52
Speaker
worrying about what everybody else thinks of the thing that I said at 10.03 last night you know because no one noticed it, no one cared, no one's attributing any importance to it.
00:18:04
Speaker
It's just me worrying about what other people think. Right, exactly. And that's totally the case in middle school and high school. I mean, I was very paranoid that everybody was looking at me, watching me. What was I wearing? What did my hair look like? And all of that.
00:18:22
Speaker
It turns out that it really, it's not the case. But it is hard now, even as a 25-year-old, when I scroll through Instagram and everything like that and seeing, like, people are posting their highlight reels on Instagram.
00:18:38
Speaker
Nobody's going to post that picture of their bed head where they just rolled out of bed and didn't put their makeup on yet if that's not what they want the world to see. So that's also something that I dealt with a little bit when I was in high school and middle school because we were just on the first wave of social media at that point.
00:18:58
Speaker
But right now I know that teenagers are dealing with that like hardcore. I teach elementary school and we still have fifth graders who are coming in. This one wrote this Instagram comment. This one doesn't want to be my friend. This one's trying to turn this one against me. And I'm like, listen, find the people who love you.
00:19:18
Speaker
and stay with them and stick with them and love them back. Because that's what's gonna get you through all of this craziness. And one day you'll figure out that it didn't really matter at all. Totally, but as you say, it's like a magnet. They're drawn to it at that age and it feels all important.
00:19:35
Speaker
So you then went on to talk about high school age when things really started to get to be, you recognise that as anxiety. And as I said in my intro, I think workload becomes a big issue, hormones are flying around, friendships, boyfriends, everything happens in high school, which is our version of kind of the upper senior secondary school.
00:20:01
Speaker
You talked about negative energy in your friendship group. Yeah. And looking back now, I'm still friends with some of these people. Some of these people were wonderful human beings because of COVID. I've actually reconnected with a lot of them because and because of my new podcast as well. But I can remember that there was just this certain air of
00:20:27
Speaker
trying to be better than the person next to you, even within the friend group. And I think that that was because I was traveling in a group of really smart kids. We were identified as those high flyers in the sixth grade, and it kept going until high school. So I was
00:20:50
Speaker
friends with the valedictorian I was friends with you know the some of the smartest kids in school and as Someone dealing with anxiety It was hard to watch them succeed Because I could I felt that I could only put so much effort into my schoolwork without really making myself crazy because
00:21:17
Speaker
I think that I could have applied myself so much more looking back on it now. I know that I could have applied myself so much more, but had I spent those sleepless nights, had I spent all those hours studying, I think that my mental health would have suffered more than it already did. And that was kind of a choice that I made for survival purposes. But again,
00:21:40
Speaker
I didn't know this until I was twenty four twenty five looking back on it. So if that's something that maybe a listener is dealing with that you feel like there's so much pressure. There is a lot of pressure especially now when people are trying to get into colleges and universities and they're looking at all of those.
00:21:59
Speaker
secondary grades or those high school grades, I promise that it's going to be okay. I'm not saying let your grades slip. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I'm saying that there comes a point when your mental health is way more important than that test tomorrow. Like you can put down those materials and you can rest. Giving yourself permission to rest was a life-changing thing for me personally.
00:22:28
Speaker
I think you've hit the nail on the head because I think the pressure nowadays on kids to succeed and do well is immense. I think they grow up with a belief that if they don't get A star grades in everything, they won't have a good career. Their life is over by the time they're 18. I really think that schools, especially in the UK, I don't know how it is in America,
00:22:54
Speaker
put that pressure on them and for many that's okay that presses the right button that makes them focus and work and make the most of themselves but for somebody who is in the situation you were in for someone who finds that all intensely anxiety inducing
00:23:15
Speaker
That doesn't help at all. No, no, it does not. One of the things that I'm very, very clear on with my own kids, and I want to say it on the podcast, is irrespective of what you how you do academically in school, you need to be focusing on the things that make you happy.
00:23:35
Speaker
that get you out of bed looking forward to your work every day, and then find a way to make money out of that. I'm fascinated by how you coped with deciding not to be an A student when all your friends were, because I was that person, I was an A student and all my friends were, and I was the third. I remember this very clearly, this is 30 odd years ago, but I still remember. In my group of five, I was third,
00:24:05
Speaker
in my own head in terms of who got the best grades, who did the most, you know, cool stuff. I was third and I was sort of okay with that but it still caused me stress.
00:24:16
Speaker
I completely understand that and it's interesting that you say you thought that you were third because I thought that I was so much below all of these people because they were scoring great on their tests. We have, and it's, I think it's around the world, it should be around the world, the International Baccalaureate Program.
00:24:42
Speaker
So we were one of the only schools, literally in the nation at that point, that had this program in place. And they were pushing, do the IB program, do the IB program. And my sister had gone through and she had taken some IB classes. And I had the conversation with my dad, and actually he really sat me down and had the conversation and said, I don't want you in those classes unless it's something that you really want to do.
00:25:11
Speaker
Thank God for him, huh? Yes. My dad is he's a wonderful human being, but he saw what my sister had gone through and what her classmates had gone through and all the sleepless nights and staying up and all of this stuff. And he said, it's not worth all of that trouble. If you could be in a different class that might it might move a little bit slower, you might be with a different group of kids.
00:25:37
Speaker
But I'll tell you, I learned more about myself in my economics and government class than I know that I would have if I was taking IB History of the Americas. I know that for a fact. I learned how to do public speaking because we had to go up and we had to present on an article. We had to work in groups. I had a new teacher, none of us knew him at all, who turned out to be one of my biggest advocates for me during high school.
00:26:07
Speaker
So going back to my dad, he really understood that there's only so much pressure that you can put on somebody in a case like that. So I thank him so much for that because I would have struggled and I would have tried to keep up with all of my friends and I probably would have felt even worse because
00:26:33
Speaker
It was not for me. My brain doesn't remember facts about history. I find it really interesting, but trying to get all of that in and then take a test, which I'm also not the best test taker because that was another anxiety inducing thing.
00:26:50
Speaker
It's having that conversation of what makes you happy, what's going to be best for you. And that's why I ended up in all of my music classes, which is something that made me happy. And my parents were so supportive of that. That's so good because I do think parents can be
00:27:08
Speaker
with the best of intentions, very ambitious for their kids. And I mean, all of us are, I'm ambitious for my kids, but I'm ambitious in a way that I want them to do well financially, but doing something they love, not doing something they think they ought to be doing. It's exactly the same here.
Seeking Help and Family Support
00:27:25
Speaker
And I think, thank goodness you had parents that were supportive about that. I'm interested to talk to you now though, about,
00:27:35
Speaker
You said that aged 12 or 13 you asked your parents for help with mental health and that didn't work out and I'm surprised it didn't work out given what you've just said about your dad and how supportive they were. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you asked and what happened?
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, you can probably see I get a little bit emotional about this story. Going back to when I brought my best friend to church in middle school for that mental health and wellness kind of presentation, they had actually brought in someone else, not our pastor, but it was for our youth group to talk to us about mental health.
00:28:24
Speaker
And I set myself up and I said, this is going to be the time when I am going to say something. Because all of the things that they said during that meeting, I was like, yep, yep, yep, I feel that way. I feel that way. I feel that way. Okay, I know that I'm not making this up anymore.
00:28:45
Speaker
So I do remember being after the conversation, and my pastor said, if you ever need to talk to somebody, I'm here, and had that kind of powwow at the end, and then we all kind of dispersed, waiting for our parents to pick us up.
00:29:01
Speaker
And I went to the bathroom and I took my contacts out of my eyes because I knew that I was going to cry. And I took my best friend and walked down the hallway, my pastor was going back to his office, and I called out to him and he turned around and he's like, oh Victoria, what's up? And I said, I need help.
00:29:27
Speaker
We went to his office. I kind of told him how I was feeling. I think my dad was already on the way to come pick me up. He called my mom and said, I think that you need to be here too. She's fine. She's with me, but we have to have a discussion and a conversation. So they came in. I worked really hard on expressing my feelings. And again,
00:29:52
Speaker
I wasn't sure if my feelings were valid at that point. I couldn't pinpoint one thing that was making me so upset or anxiety-ridden. I just knew that someone had given me the boxes now, and I checked all of them.
00:30:08
Speaker
So my best friend was there and I really appreciate her. She is still one of my biggest advocates to this day. We had that conversation and my pastor said, I think we are dealing with depression and I think that we need to kind of work on this together.
00:30:29
Speaker
So it felt so good to be able to have that conversation and ask for that help. Um, and then we all kind of drove home and we sat in the kitchen without my pastor, without my best friend and kind of discussed more so of why didn't you tell us before as opposed to what can we do to help? And,
00:30:59
Speaker
I don't know if my parents really understood the severity of what was happening. And it took me a long time to realize that that also wasn't necessarily their fault. But as a 12 year old, it was more their responsibility than mine. Yeah. So I did go and I saw my pastor as sort of like a counseling thing. And I remember
00:31:29
Speaker
crying about my hamster. I remember crying about my hamster that died, but the reason that the hamster died was because I was in such a state that I couldn't care for the hamster. And again, looking back, I'm 25 years old now. I know what happened, but at the time,
00:31:48
Speaker
Mom was angry because now you know I the hamster was dead because I couldn't figure out how to take care of myself Let alone how to feed and play with a hamster and my sister I found out held that against me for years Saying that she just thought that I was lazy that I couldn't take care of this animal So I'm in my pastor's office. I'm crying about this hamster. We have this breakthrough of you know God cares about you and
00:32:18
Speaker
It's okay. The hamster's okay. And the hamster has gone on to wherever you believe that he goes when he passes away. But it wasn't really your fault. And that was a huge breakthrough for me. And I sobbed. I couldn't say anything for the rest of our session because I was so overwhelmed that someone was taking that burden that I was carrying off of me. Yeah, I get that.
00:32:49
Speaker
But the sessions kind of stopped. I went maybe two or three times to talk to my pastor, never really talked to a therapist or anything. And after I had told my parents, I had this very clear vision of what was going to happen. There was going to be less pressure on me to do things around the house. There was going to be more support to help me with my homework. There was going to be
00:33:15
Speaker
more time to hang out with friends because that was something that made me happy. And that's not how it worked. It was maybe the subject of conversation for two or three days. And then it kind of melted into the background.
00:33:31
Speaker
And I was very confused about that because I had done the work. I had done that crazy, scary thing of telling them. And then I didn't get that help that I thought I deserved for being that strong. So it was a very weird kind of time. And because I wasn't getting that support,
00:33:59
Speaker
I turned in on myself instead. I said, if I'm gonna put myself out there and nobody's gonna be willing to help me, then I'm just gonna deal with it on my own because it felt less disappointing. Because it was disappointing to say something to someone and then not have someone acknowledge and try to help you, especially when it was my parents. So that was a really tough time. Yeah, I get that. Oh, totally.
00:34:27
Speaker
Do you think that life just took over? Because family life as a parent is hectic, it's manic, it's impossible to do all of the things. Do you think that after you'd come out and said all of that that they thought maybe that was therapeutic enough and they
00:34:48
Speaker
everybody just carried on? Or was it, do you think they just didn't know how to deal with it? I think it was a little bit of both. I think that they had seen me, they had seen me, you know, step up and say, this hurts, but I don't know if I was able to express how much I was hurting. And I think life does have to go on. And I realized that
00:35:18
Speaker
years later in college I realized that years later in high school that life has to go on and it's not going to stop for you but at the same time there are things that could have been implemented earlier that would have prevented a lot of the extra you know depression stress anxiety turning into panic attacks as a young adult so
00:35:43
Speaker
I don't blame them. I did for a little while, I'll be honest. I was very frustrated, especially because I was still dealing with it 10 years later. But they have lives too. They had another child. They had, you know, jobs and things to worry about. And if they'd never felt this before, thank goodness that they hadn't.
00:36:07
Speaker
It's hard to understand where someone else is coming from when they make such a claim as, I think I'm depressed, I think I need help. Yeah, you can't relate if you haven't experienced it yourself, I understand that. Because I'm looking at this as a parent and understanding the pressures that a parent is under.
00:36:30
Speaker
but also as a person who I've had panic attacks, not many, and I knew them for what they were immediately and I did get help. Unfortunately, I've not had one since, but you've talked about how you went on to college and you found your people and you had an amazing time. Did it feel like it was all over then before the panic attacks started?
00:36:59
Speaker
It wasn't necessarily over, but I learned as that young adult in college what actually mattered and I learned what actually helped.
00:37:14
Speaker
So I learned that I have this group of people that I can rely on. I also was head over heels in love with my academic major. I spent middle school and high school, my safe places were the music wing and the chorus room. So now I lived in the music wing. We had a music building now that I spent most of my time in.
00:37:38
Speaker
That's so good, isn't it? Sorry, I'm interrupting you, but I remember that. When you go, the only subjects you have to do and study are the ones that you really, really, really like, and you can drop off the other stuff. Yes, and it was amazing. I met so many like-minded people.
00:37:56
Speaker
I had wonderful friends, I had great roommates, wonderful professors, and I feel like I really hit my stride in college because I was surrounded by all of this encouragement. I also realized
00:38:12
Speaker
Okay, again, thinking back to middle school and high school, I talked a little bit about it in my podcast. Music history was not my thing. And like we were talking about IB history, history was never my thing. I'm really bad at memorizing facts and things like that.
00:38:29
Speaker
But it was different now because it was that next step of getting to be a music teacher. So it was much more rewarding and much more worthwhile for me to sit through that class. And I could see it now. High school was leading up to college, which was leading up to be a music teacher. But college was, oh my gosh, in a couple years, I'm going to be out in the classroom doing what I've always wanted to do. So I think that motivation,
00:38:56
Speaker
really kind of paved the way for me to have a wonderful time. And I'm sure you can hear it in my voice. I get so excited when I talk about college and when I talk about music education because they were just times that really formed who I was. So college was a really wonderful time. I had all the support. I realized that in order to keep my mental health in a good place, I went and I talked to our chaplain every single week.
00:39:24
Speaker
I went to church service on Sunday with a group of friends who had the same belief system as I did. And I surrounded myself with people and experiences that were helping me to deal with the anxiety and depression. I don't think that it totally went away, but I think it was much more manageable because of the setting that I was in and what I was working to do. Yeah. I have a difficult question.
00:39:53
Speaker
Do you think that once you're an anxiety sufferer, if you want to call it that and I don't like sufferer, but once you're dealing and living with anxiety, do you think it ever goes away? I would love to say yes, but I'm not quite sure.
00:40:15
Speaker
And I wish that I knew that answer because as an adult, I still have my moments. I still have my triggers. But I think, I don't think that it goes away. I just think that you, like I mentioned, learn how to manage it a little bit more and learn what healthy coping mechanisms are and how to apply them to your life.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I heard somebody recently on a podcast saying once you've got anxiety, you've always got anxiety. But I actually wonder if you're born with anxiety.
00:40:53
Speaker
and it's just a thing that manifests at different points in different people and you have to learn how to live with it. The same way you learn how to live with the need for sleep or the small things that everybody has in their life, indigestion, whatever it is that people have, you just learn how to manage it and cope with it. So were you on, would you say at college,
00:41:20
Speaker
the start of you learning to deal with things and was that the start of recovery if you want to call it that for you? At the time yes absolutely it was even right from right from before college I went to a sleep away camp got to meet my professors got to meet some of the people that would be my classmates
00:41:45
Speaker
And when I came home from sleep away camp and actually went back and went to another get together with my high school friends They looked at me and said we have never seen you so happy in our entire lives
00:42:00
Speaker
And I was telling them all about, these are the people that I have. This is what I'm going to be doing. Like if all my days look like this, it's going to be great. So college was definitely, it was kind of like a reprieve of those feelings, but they definitely came back after college because we haven't even gotten into the panic attack side of the story yet. So.
00:42:25
Speaker
Well, tell me about that now, then. Let's nail that.
Panic Attacks and Recovery Journey
00:42:29
Speaker
OK. I graduated college in 2017. I had a wonderful student teaching experience. I did my student teaching at a Title I school. So the kids were a little less fortunate, didn't have all of the funding. We're getting some state funding.
00:42:49
Speaker
And I loved it. And I said, if I can teach in this kind of inner city school during my student teaching and be so
00:43:01
Speaker
happy, I can teach anywhere. And that was the first year teacher in me who had so much confidence because she had just done super, super well with student teaching. But that wasn't necessarily the case because in student teaching I had another teacher to rely on. I had someone else's kids who they had been taught over years and years and years
00:43:25
Speaker
of what the expectations are in the classroom. So I came into an already established classroom and took that as, I am an awesome teacher, I can handle anything. And if there are any teachers listening to this, you're probably laughing at me right now because that is not how it goes in teaching at all.
00:43:48
Speaker
So the summer before my first year of teaching, which was the summer after graduation, was the most stressful time in my entire life thus far. Because I was waiting on not only my teaching certification to come through, but I was also looking for a job. So that was the mindset that I went into. And then I graduated, and I didn't have a job. And I think I set myself up for
00:44:15
Speaker
not failure, but not to be as successful as I could because I already felt like I had failed the first obstacle that I put in front of myself post college. But I did get a job and the job was in the state of Maryland, I was working at two separate schools. So three days a week I would go to one school, two days a week I would go to another, I was a full-time person, I had all of my health benefits and everything, and I had an apartment,
00:44:45
Speaker
Great. One of the schools was absolutely wonderful, great administration, totally loved being there, and the other had a lot of problems that I was walking into that I didn't know that I was walking into.
00:45:03
Speaker
And that was kind of the, I don't want to say the issue, but I wasn't prepared. I think that's that's what I want to say. I was not prepared for what I was walking into. So when was the first panic attack?
00:45:20
Speaker
I am not proud to say it, but I actually was, I drove in my car having the panic attack, which was extraordinarily unsafe because I was not in a position to actually be driving
00:45:38
Speaker
I had gone home for Christmas break. So I had Christmas break off as a teacher and I had gone home and I had just gotten back to my apartment. I was back to going back to school and dealing with all of these, you know, anxiety inducing situations each day. And I went to school for four days and then there was a weekend. And Mondays were my toughest day. Mondays were really, really tough in terms of
00:46:07
Speaker
class discipline and just everything that was going on in my room. So I got a text message from the librarian of the school who said, you should probably pack a backpack because you might have to stay over at a hotel depending on how this snowstorm goes that we were supposed to get. And that set me over the edge.
00:46:36
Speaker
And I said, I'm going to leave my apartment. I'm going to go stay in a hotel to be in this environment that is not serving me, that I feel like I'm not doing enough and I'm not making a difference and the kids won't listen and there's so much going on. And I felt like all of these things kind of rolled into one. So I woke up on that Monday morning and I packed up my backpack.
00:47:00
Speaker
And I called my dad and I was like, I can't do this. I cannot, I cannot do this. And he's like, okay, well, you have to do this. Like, this is your job. And honestly, I would have taken a sick day that day, but I had already taken so many sick days.
00:47:19
Speaker
because I was having bouts of anxiety that were turning into, I felt like violently ill. Like I thought that I was going to be really sick and I would be sent home. Looking back, that was the anxiety, the anxiety in my gut of the situation that I was in.
00:47:40
Speaker
And I was on the phone with my dad and then in the car I called my mentor and I said, I cannot walk in that building. I cannot come in today. I need you to make sure that I have a substitute. I can't do it. So I sat in the parking lot and I refused to get out of the car until she told me that I didn't have to teach that day. It sounds like you have a really good voice in your own head telling you alternative ways to look at your situation.
00:48:10
Speaker
Is that how you got through things? Because you're a teacher now, right? So you've managed to process all of that and get past it. How have you done that? It took a lot. I went home. I moved back to New York and moved in with my parents again, which was an experience at the age of 23 I was at this time. Yeah.
00:48:35
Speaker
No one wants to move back in with their parents. Making that adjustment was so hard and then I had a couple of other jobs where I actually got injured. So at the age of 23 I was lifting kids up to the uneven bars at a children's fitness center and tore a muscle in my hip socket because of course that's the next thing that I needed to do.
00:49:01
Speaker
But it was such a blessing in disguise because as an adult, I had to rely on my mom. And I didn't think as an adult that I needed to rely on my mom anymore, but I needed her so badly because I couldn't walk. Like I had to learn how to walk again. And sometimes it's the big things that you think are terrible that turn out to be useful in some way to put you
00:49:26
Speaker
in the right place for the next thing isn't it and I think kids are experiencing so many life-changing things in a very small in very small ways but that feel huge to them at the time and I think they need to know that all of those things that seem difficult right now will be useful to them eventually in the future everything everything
00:49:51
Speaker
I'm interested before we finished, I'm interested to explore that time when you were home relying on your mum because you've talked about how you've discussed with your family the fact that they didn't get you the support you needed when you were 12, 13 and you told them that you were struggling
00:50:11
Speaker
Is that when you managed to piece things together with them and come to a different place with your parents? Yes. When I got home from Maryland and I moved back in with them, all I remember was crying, but not like crying in like a, like, you know, kind of sniffly nose, a couple of tears. It was crying like I'd never cried before.
00:50:41
Speaker
And it was so hard on the entire family. But now that I was an adult, I kind of had the words. And mom's way of trying to calm me down when I was having these crying fits would be, it's okay, like it's gonna be all right. We're gonna work through this because you need to know how to deal with these situations in the future.
00:51:06
Speaker
And that's when I broke down, and that was the first time that I ever actually snapped and yelled at my parents. And I don't think that that was necessarily the right thing to do, but it was an effective thing to do. Because I turned around and I yelled and I said, I asked for help, so this didn't happen.
00:51:29
Speaker
I asked you to acknowledge this ten years ago. I brought you to church. I sat you down with my best friend and the pastor.
00:51:44
Speaker
And here we are. I dealt with this for 10 years. So no, you don't get to say, this makes me uncomfortable. I'm gonna shy away from it because I need you to live in it with me right now because you miss those 10 years of it. And I'm getting a little emotional. It was the most important and the most emotional conversation I had ever had.
00:52:12
Speaker
and it was with my mom who I loved dearly and I wanted to be respectful to and now I was yelling at to get my point across and I think it was the first time that my mom actually stepped back and said
00:52:26
Speaker
oh my gosh, I could have prevented all of this, or at least changed a little bit of it. Maybe she would have had better coping mechanisms. And that's a really hard thing to hear from anybody, let alone it being a parent and a child. But after we had that experience in which I yelled it out and cried it out,
00:52:53
Speaker
she started listening so much more. And that was what changed our adult relationship because she is now my best friend. I can tell her anything. And I know that she's going to listen without judgment. And I know that she is going to check in on my mental health along the way and say, okay, is this an issue that you need to go talk to someone about? Is there something that I can do?
00:53:21
Speaker
But navigating and getting to that point was pretty difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad that I'm so glad you did yell at her. And sometimes that is what's needed. Sometimes it's the only thing. And sometimes you have to shock someone out of the headspace they're in that says everything is as it's always been. That's what you need for change.
00:53:47
Speaker
And I'm so thankful that I did have the courage to do that, and so thankful that even if it was 10 years later, someone started listening. And then I was able to go and get the help that I needed and the help that I deserved, that I don't know if I realized I deserved until then, and was able to get myself back into a better mental health space so I could go on and achieve my dreams.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was just going to say because I always finish by asking what you would tell that young person if you could go back now with the benefit of hindsight as an adult and also what you would say to any parents, what you would have wanted your mum to know at that point, what you would say to any parents who think they're dealing with similar
00:54:40
Speaker
As you were talking, it felt to me like maybe at 12 when you were experiencing this, you didn't know enough about what you were dealing with to force your point through. You didn't know it was as big as it was going to be. Right, exactly. For my 12 year old self, I am still proud of her.
00:55:06
Speaker
I'm really proud of her because she found other avenues in order to keep moving forward. She found other people to rely on and she didn't give up. If I could talk to her as the 25 year old self that I am now, I would tell her
00:55:23
Speaker
you need to keep trying because you deserve to feel better than what you feel right now. So yes, it will be hard and your parents might not understand, but they are your biggest advocates and they are going to love you through this. And that's just how it's going to be. It's unconditional.
00:55:46
Speaker
And to the parents out there who are concerned, I know that it might seem that maybe your teenager doesn't want to talk to you about anything because that's just kind of the stage that that's a phase that we go through. I will totally admit that.
00:56:03
Speaker
But knowing that that space is open and knowing that there's that two-way street of communication, even if the teenager, you know, is, you know, I don't want to talk to you about it. Like, no, like, why would I ever talk to my mom, my dad about something like that?
00:56:18
Speaker
Keeping asking those questions and keeping in touch with what's going on in the students' lives or in the kids' lives or even in their friend group, like what's happening, it gives you a lot of insight as to what your child may be feeling. So even if they don't want to talk to you, even if it seems annoying,
00:56:41
Speaker
keep asking those questions because if there is some underlying thing there and it's building and getting worse, eventually they will tell you because it hurts so badly that they have to tell someone. And I'm, I'm warning you now that it could be a very, very emotional conversation that you need to have, just like I had to have with my parents, but it is so worth it. And it's going to make that relationship even better.
00:57:10
Speaker
I agree. I think that's spot on and it's such
00:57:15
Speaker
such a good point to end on. Thank you, Victoria. Thank you so much for sharing this. I can see that you're emotional. You've made me a bit emotional as well at times, but that's fine because that's, you know, these topics are difficult and emotional. I feel privileged that you've shared that with us. Well, thank you for having me because it's definitely an important story. Totally. If people want to connect with you, where can they find you? Tell us about your podcast.
00:57:45
Speaker
Yeah, I started a podcast called the intention seekers, you can find that on iTunes and Spotify wherever you're looking for a podcast and on there I've shared a little bit more about my story. And we are also diving into mindset now that I'm in this place where I feel that
00:58:06
Speaker
I can be a really great version of myself. I'm getting a little bit more intentional about the choices that I'm making to make sure that I keep my mental health in check. So I'm on there. I'm also very active on Instagram if you want to reach out and have a conversation. I love talking to anyone, especially about this such important topic.
00:58:28
Speaker
You can find me at victoria.medal, M-E-T-A-L. And I would love to talk to you, continue this conversation. And if you want to send your teenagers my way, I'm more than happy to talk to them too. Well, I'm going to go and follow you now. And because I'm following you, I'm betting that my daughter won't follow you.
00:58:51
Speaker
Well, she might have a look and then tell me I have to stop following you so that she can. Because it has to be a private space for her. Yeah, which is understandable. I mean, listen, I'm not going to tell your kid to go do something totally extravagant. But if they're having something that they need to talk about, and if I'm the person that they feel connected with, that's a privilege and an honor for me.
Open Communication on Mental Health
00:59:16
Speaker
Listening to Victoria, I was so struck by how
00:59:21
Speaker
common anxiety really is in kids. I could see myself in her early years lying on the floor of my bedroom listening to music like that just to switch off from everything that was causing me anxiety and stress. But what I think we sometimes don't remember when we're busy getting on with our lives is how depression and anxiety isn't just a short-term thing and if it's not dealt with
00:59:51
Speaker
at the time it can go on to cause much bigger problems. Above all I think the part of Victoria's message that stays with me is the need to talk and to keep talking if the people you love don't want to listen or don't want to open up.
01:00:11
Speaker
I think it's so, so common as parents to struggle to get our kids to tell us what's really going on. And I think looking at teenagers today and remembering how it was for me and teenagers, if you're listening, it's not all that different across the generations. We have actually been there. We are irritating, I know, but it's because we love you.
01:00:37
Speaker
but I remember not wanting to talk to my parents. There was no way I wanted to open up to my parents about the crazy stuff I thought that was going on in my head at the time. And so I think parents who are worried, as Victoria says, the important thing is to just keep on chipping away, keep on letting our kids know that we're there when they do eventually decide that they need help.
01:01:06
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you head over to iTunes and rate and subscribe the Teenage Kicks podcast. There are loads of episodes on there that might help with your teenager or that might help a teenager who's struggling with something in particular. There are also lots more parenting articles on my blog, Actually Mummy, so do head over there and have a read. I'll pop a link in the show notes.
01:01:38
Speaker
Bye for now and come back next week for another brilliant teenage kicks guest.