Not everyone has to take medication for their mental health. For some, it is possible to just have two or three days a week to themselves so they can relax and decompress. But for others, like myself, a couple days to relax doesn’t help enough. This is one of the reasons why I take medication for my anxiety.
I can remember multiple times before I began taking medication that I experienced anxiety and panic attacks that were both unexpected and also provoked.
One incident happened while I was in driver’s ed. I was driving the car. The instructor was in the passenger seat and two of my friends were in the backseat. The instructor told me to pull into the driveway of this house in town, so I did. He said to put the car in park, so I did. Then he told me to test the horn.
I said, “There’s a car in the driveway. I’m not honking the horn.”
“Just do it.”
“No, I don’t see why I need to do this.”
“Just test it. Just push the horn slightly.”
So I pushed ever so lightly on the horn and it barely made a noticeable noise. Then I looked over at the instructor.
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
“Can we go now? I don’t want to be here incase someone comes outside.” I said.
I was given the okay and started to back out of this stranger’s driveway. Just as I reached the bottom of the driveway a lady came outside. My friends in the backseat said,
“Someone’s coming, go, go, go!”
The instructor said, “No, we can’t do that. Just tell them that you went to the wrong house.”
At this point, I’m in panic mode. I’m looking between my instructor and the dashboard in front of him while yelling, “I said we shouldn’t honk the horn! I told you there was probably someone home!”
The lady approached my call and my instructor told me to roll down my window.
“Can I help you,” she said while looking into my eyes.
I instantly looked over at my instructor, who was looking at me. After a few seconds of silence he said, “This is a student learning vehicle and we were just testing the horn.”
“Oh,” she said.
After a few more seconds of silence, she began to laugh.
“You can’t keep doing this to me, Matt,” she said while looking at my instructor.
He began laughing with her. Turns out this was a planned “prank”. My driving instructor and the lady used to teach at the same school and he does this prank every year to is students. I just happened to be the driver this time. The only thing I could do was sigh and shake my head. I was so close to crying moments before.
As we were leaving my instructor said that he had never seen a reaction like mine before. All I could do was roll my eyes and bite the inside of my cheek. This just one of the examples of a time when my panic disorder and anxiety were provoked and why I take medication to prevent the way I gave my response.
To My Anxiety 
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