the weight i carried, the fear i faced
I thought surviving meant staying small. Turns out, it means showing up, fear and all.
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I grew up in chaos.
Not the kind you watch on TV with some neat resolution at the end.
This was messy, jagged.
My dad drank like there was no tomorrow, and home was a warzone. You never knew what version of the day you'd get.
School wasn't any better.
Bullies prowled the halls, hungry for weakness, always ready to strike.
And the neighborhood, well it carried the stench of crime, thick and clinging, like smoke you couldn't escape. Fear slithered through every crack, every window, creeping into moments that were supposed to be safe.
No rainbows or sunny childhood clichés here—just a constant hum of dread, turning life into something you had to survive.
Anxiety slipped in quietly, unannounced, like a squatter in the corners of my mind.
It didn’t scream or rage; it just… lived there.
A shadow I never noticed until it became part of me.
It wasn't some loud, sudden panic attack. No clutching my chest or gasping for air.
It was a dull thrum, a constant hum under the surface, there every day, whether I acknowledged it or not.
Imagine a phantom stitched into your skin, dragging along wherever you go. That’s what it felt like—something always lurking, just out of sight, tainting everything.
Joy never felt clean; it came with a tinge of suspicion. Even bright moments got stained, like sunlight through dirty glass.
I wonder what life would’ve been like without it—without that sneaky grip around my chest, without the mental gymnastics just to get through the basics.
I might have been louder, freer, less tied up in invisible knots.
But anxiety was subtle.
It never demanded attention, only drained energy from the sidelines.
And since it never exploded into full-blown catastrophes, I thought it couldn’t be anxiety.
How could it be?
Anxiety was supposed to hit like a brick wall—sharp, unmistakable.
Mine was a slow drip, wearing me down without making a sound. A wave that swells and recedes, never crashing hard, just lapping at the edges of my mind, over and over, until one day I realized I’d been drowning all along.
The Battle Within
Over time, the world outside my bubble stopped feeling safe.
It started looking like enemy territory—brimming with danger, imaginary critics, and threats lurking in plain sight. The fear of messing up, disappointing someone, or just not being enough coiled around me.
Everything beyond my comfort zone felt like hostile ground.
So, I shrank away.
Little by little, I walled myself off, trading freedom for the illusion of safety, while fear took up more space in my shrinking universe.
Tiptoeing became second nature. Always watching, always bracing.
I lived like a fugitive, dodging a shadow I couldn’t name.
Anxiety didn’t scream at me.
It whispered, but those whispers weighed tons.
No alarms. Just the heavy thud of constant alertness. It was exhausting—like sprinting from something invisible but never making it far enough to catch a break.
Looking back now, I see it. Anxiety wasn’t just an occasional visitor. It was a squatter, setting up camp in every corner of my mind. Not some fleeting worry but a slow, creeping takeover. It didn’t just color my thoughts—it boxed me in, locking me behind invisible bars where I played both jailer and prisoner.
Then adulthood hit.
And my past came with it, dragging along those old fears like tattered luggage. The anxiety knot in my stomach became tighter than ever.
Somewhere in the mess, I tried to anchor myself to a relationship. It felt like a way out—like, maybe, just maybe, I’d found something solid in all the chaos.
Spoiler alert: I hadn’t.
The whole thing unraveled into betrayal, and the wreckage came fast and hard.
That small hope shattered. The weight of broken trust sent my anxiety into overdrive, kicking up all the dust I thought I’d buried.
And just like that, anxiety blew up.
What used to simmer under the surface erupted.
It wasn’t quiet anymore.
It was a storm—loud, chaotic, and unforgiving.
Panic attacks, once a foreign concept, crashed into my life like vandals, tearing through the little peace I had left. They came without warning, leaving me paralyzed, drowning in their grip.
Nature and Words
Under the weight of despair, I clung to two lifelines—one rooted in the wild, the other inked between the lines of my journal. Both held me close, though neither could save me for long.
Out in nature, everything was unfiltered, untamed.
Towering trees. Open skies.
Wind that didn’t care who I was or what haunted me.
Out there, I could breathe. Just for a moment.
Anxiety loosened its grip, though never enough to let me go entirely.
Nature had a rhythm all its own.
No chaos, no second-guessing—just the steady hum of life happening. The shuffle of leaves. Birds chirping like they had gossip to spill. Forests buzzing with quiet energy, a background hum that coaxed my restless thoughts into something resembling peace. It was grounding. But also temporary.
Writing offered a different kind of relief.
The journal pages soaked up everything—the fear, the anger, the confusion—like they had no limits. I poured myself out, word by word, hoping that if I emptied enough onto the page, maybe I’d feel lighter.
But even that was just a band-aid. A quick fix.
Anxiety waited patiently, lurking beneath every period I pressed into the paper.
The truth hit me one day, sharp and uncomfortable: these escapes were only pit stops, not solutions.
I could run to the woods, scribble until my hand cramped, but the anxiety always found me again.
Then that book popped into my mind: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.
The title hit me like a dare I couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t about dodging the fear. It was about dragging it into the light, looking it dead in the eye, and moving forward anyway.
Confrontation and Revelation
Facing fear isn’t a neat little exercise.
It’s like stepping into a storm, knowing full well you’re going to get knocked around and soaked to the bone. But here’s the kicker—there’s no other way to reach the calm on the other side.
I knew if I wanted to wrestle my life back from anxiety’s grip, I had to walk straight into the mess. No shortcuts, no detours. Just me and the fear, head-on.
So, I made the call—I'd take my anxiety to TikTok.
Yeah, weird flex, right?
But for someone with social anxiety, throwing my face, my thoughts, my messy life in front of millions felt like walking into a lion’s den wearing a steak necklace.
No armor. Just nerves.
TikTok, for all its dancing trends and chaotic energy, was society on speed.
Likes. Comments. Trolls.
Random strangers with opinions they should’ve kept to themselves. The idea of putting myself out there, raw and exposed, made my heart race.
But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? If I could face my fear under the glare of the public spotlight, maybe—just maybe—I could stop anxiety from running my life.
So I hit record.
No script, no filter.
Just me, fumbling through it.
It felt ridiculous, terrifying, even kind of stupid.
But it also felt necessary.
Every video was a little rebellion against the fear that had kept me small for so long. This wasn’t just about mental health; this was about reclaiming who I was.
The stage was set. The fight was on.
And let me tell you, the fear didn’t sit quietly in the corner.
It roared back.
Each upload was a nerve-rattling duel—my thumb hovering over the "post" button like it held the fate of the universe. Every view, like, or hateful comment felt like a punch in the gut. Silence, oddly enough, hurt just as much.
But I kept going. One shaky post at a time.
The thing about putting yourself on blast is that it forces you to deal with your own reflection. Every clip I uploaded became a magnifying glass, showing me the tangled mess inside my head.
I saw how childhood bullying, my dad’s drinking, and the constant fear that shadowed our neighborhood all fed into the monster of social anxiety. Turns out, anxiety wasn’t just in my mind—it was baked into my story, stitched into the seams of my past.
Recording these videos wasn’t just about sharing.
It was about facing.
Every time I hit record, I stared my fear down—exposing myself, not just to the internet, but to the parts of me I’d been dodging for years. Those family issues I never talked about. The trust I gave too easily and had shattered.
It all spilled out, piece by piece, clip by clip.
Posting became a kind of therapy, even when it hurt. Even when the fear punched back. Each video felt like unpeeling a layer of my past, yanking it out from the dark and laying it bare.
Yeah, it was messy. Yeah, it stung.
But it also cracked open something new—a chance to understand where the anxiety came from and why it clung so tight.
And through all of it, the good, the bad, the absolutely cringe-worthy, I learned something unexpected: Beating fear isn’t about erasing it.
It’s about moving through it.
The fear didn’t disappear—it never does.
But it shrank, just enough for me to move around it.
To live around it. And that’s all I needed.
—Ryan Puusaari
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P.P.S. "Anxiety’s sneaky; it doesn’t knock—it just moves in, rearranges your thoughts, and eats all your peace."
Healing Thoughts — A Journey of Reflection, Poetry, and Healing, Made Possible by You
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Each page is a step toward healing, filled with wisdom, introspection, and emotional insight to guide you on your personal journey.
This book is more than just words—it’s our story.
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