“True Stories” is a series of guest blogs I am running. Below, a woman gives her anonymous account of developing clinical anxiety during law school and how she finally decided to get help and take care of herself.
I am a woman, an attorney, and someone who happens to struggle with clinical anxiety.
It started in law school. At first, I thought it was just the jitters from being in a fishbowl of super-competitive overachievers like me. This was Cornell Law School, after all. What did I expect?
But as my first year of law school progressed, my anxiety when from background noise to the forefront in my life. I had panic attacks, I often couldn’t sleep, and I just felt wired all the time. It seemed to fuel my drive to succeed, and I over-prepared for everything, often reading a case note four or five times. I never talked about my struggles with anyone that first year.
