Launch

Hello readers. My name is Kayla, but online, people generally call me Tiki. Let's get down to business.

In 2013, I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder that extends to just about everything. I also seem to have social anxiety to a lesser degree. A few months prior, I learned that there was such a thing as an anxiety disorder and that a doctor could actually help you out with it. Ever since, I've been taking Zoloft and doing my best not to put too much stress on myself. This involved taking a break from college until I felt safe in an academic setting. I returned a year later, but it wasn't meant to be.

This year, I'm coping well, and I feel more like myself again. I'm making the same grades that I did my first semester, and I'm having fun instead of worrying about everything that could happen to the point of immobilizing myself in the doorway with fear.

Awhile ago, I joined Yik Yak, and I discovered that there are other people that feel like me posting their feelings where no one can find them and judge them for it. Every day, there's at least one yak about someone's depression or how they feel trapped by their mental health. About a week ago, it dawned on me that some of these people might be experiencing what I did during my second semester of college. Some of them might be just barely hanging on. Some might even still be here because of some anonymous acorn who told them things would be okay.

It made me think that there needs to be someone more accessible to help others with anxiety and other mental illnesses that seem to be so prominent among people my age and even younger. The best way to do this, I suppose, would be forming a group within my college campus to help support other students, but come on. I have anxiety, too. I have to give myself a mini pep talk before I answer a question in a class discussion. I highly doubt I'll be able to confidently run a group like that regardless of how important it would be for others to experience. That's also excluding the possibility of those who need the space feeling too anxious about being around other people and potentially being judged. What does it matter if we advertise is with safe space if someone's too afraid to come forward to see if it really is safe?

In lieu of that, I decided to make this blog and hope that someone who needs it will find it. I'm going to share my experiences and thoughts regarding my own struggle in a way I consider safe, and I'm about 99.9% sure that my usual blogs of choice are the opposite of safe. (One word: Tumblr.)

So here's to a good time posting and potentially helping another human being!