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Just Breathe Confessionals
Just Breathe Confessionals is a raw, reflective podcast where personal stories meet emotional growth, healing, and truth-telling. Each episode invites listeners into moments of becoming—through heartbreak, self-discovery, and the quiet power of breath.
Just Breathe Confessionals
The Girl With The Anxious Heart
This first episode took me eight tries to record—because honestly, I was scared. Scared to be vulnerable, scared it wouldn’t land, scared it might fail. But that fear? It’s exactly what this episode is about.
I grew up in the late '90s with undiagnosed anxiety, constantly feeling like I was on the outside looking in. I was the funny, overly sensitive, background character in my own story. When my family moved after my dad lost his job, my anxiety hit a new level—suddenly I was throwing up before school, overwhelmed by every little thing, and by age eight, I was put on Prozac.
No one explained what anxiety was. No one told me that needing support didn’t make me broken. I just internalized this quiet shame—“I’m the girl who needs medication to be okay.” That identity stuck with me for years.
I became the fixer, the emotional support, the one who didn’t want to worry anyone. And in the process, I swallowed so much of myself just trying to feel safe.
This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt too much, too different, or too anxious to speak up. It’s for the quiet feelers and the soft hearts. If that’s you, welcome. Let’s breathe through this together.
you're listening to, just breathe confessionals, a space where truth has permission to breathe. I'm your host, daria, and I just want to be honest with all you. This is like the eighth time I've recorded this episode. I'm nervous to do this, to be vulnerable, and I keep wondering if I'm doing it right or if I'm gonna fail, if I'm talking too fast or too much or not enough. But I wanted to share that with you right off the bat, because it leads into what this first episode is all about and, honestly, it's just a part of who I am. This is episode one and really we're better to start than the beginning. Today I want to take you back to where it all started for me.
Speaker 1:If I'm being honest, I've spent a lot of my time being the girl with anxiety, the girl who takes medication, the girl who feels everything too deeply, too loudly, and for a long time I hated that part of me, but before I even had words for what I was feeling, but before I even had words for what I was feeling, I just knew that I felt different. I grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s. You know butterfly clips, jelly shoes, aol messenger, those weird Furby dolls that would make noise late at night and scare the crap out of you and that pressure to just fit Whether it was your hair, your clothes, your music taste it felt like everyone else had a rule book that I didn't get. I was goofy, sensitive, weird in the best way, but also not the kind of kid other kids really picked. I don't remember being excluded in some big, dramatic fashion. I just never felt like first choice. I felt like the background character in my own story. Sometimes Things shifted even more when my dad lost his job and we had to move More. When my dad lost his job and we had to move, suddenly everything I knew my home, my school, my normal was gone, no-transcript. My anxiety didn't come quietly, it came screaming. I would get physically sick. Before school my mom had to sit with me in class and that's embarrassing. I had tantrums, and not because I was being dramatic, but because I was overwhelmed and scared all the time.
Speaker 1:Eventually, my parents made the decision to put me on medication. I was only eight years old when I started taking Prozac Eight and while I know now that they were just trying to help at the time, I didn't feel that way. It felt like proof that something was wrong with me and that became my identity the girl with anxiety, the girl who needed pills to function, the girl who couldn't just be normal. I think one of the hardest parts is that I didn't get a choice. I don't like that.
Speaker 1:I was put on medication so young, not because I think medication is bad, but because nobody helped me understand what it was doing for me. Nobody sat me down and explained that sometimes your brain just needs support, that it doesn't make you weak. Instead, I wore that label for years the girl on Prozac and it felt heavy. It felt like there was something wrong with me and for a long time I thought medication was something to be ashamed of. Now, as an adult, I know better, but back then it felt like being medicated made me defective.
Speaker 1:Even back then, despite everything I was feeling inside, I still wanted everyone to be okay around me. I still do. That's just how I'm built. I've always been the one who checks in, the one who tries to make people laugh, the one who stays strong for everyone else, even when I'm crumbling, and maybe that's something you can relate to being the strong one, being the helper, the fixer, the emotional sponge.
Speaker 1:Looking back, I see now that I wasn't broken. I was overwhelmed. I was a little girl in a loud world without the tools to process everything I was feeling. I didn't need to be fixed. I needed to be heard. I needed to be held gently. I needed someone to tell me that being too much wasn't a flaw. It was just part of how I was wired. Maybe you've been that kid. Maybe you're raising that kid. Maybe you lived your whole life trying to be okay so that everyone else doesn't worry. This episode is for you, the soft ones, the feelers, the anxious hearts who still get up and try again. Thanks for listening, thanks for breathing with me. Until next time, just breathe.