Everyone has some sort of anxiety. Anxiety is most often caused by something. Whether it is anxious about a test you didn’t study for, or it be hiding in your room, bawling your eyes out because your social anxiety won’t even let you respond to a party invitation. But, there is a difference between acute anxiety and chronic anxiety that is confusing for some people. Acute is short. Maybe lasts a week, a day, or a few hours. It is usually caused by short stresses, like tests or college applications, and usually disappears over a short period of time. Chronic anxiety is real. Not to say acute isn’t, but some people cry “anxiety attack” when they have a test next period.  Chronic anxiety comes along when a situation of high stress goes unresolved. Some triggers for chronic anxiety can be long-term stress, or, in my case, a childhood trauma.  

Death is different for everyone. People experience it in different ways, deal with it in different ways, and interpret it in different ways. Death can also be personal, or in my circumstance, public. I honestly can say I do not remember September 11th, 2001, mostly because I was four, but also because it was all a blur. Nothing seemed real. All I knew was that Dad didn’t come home from work that day, and I would soon realize that he wouldn’t be coming back.

People wanted to be a part of 9/11. It was a national tragedy. No one was safe. The fear of terrorism was in everyone’s thoughts and conversations. My father’s death was public. Nothing about it was personal. Yes, extremely personal to my family and close friends, but to acquaintances: public. No one understood, but they wanted to. The pain that the country felt about the attack is an extremely different feeling than the pain of the families of the victims. Everyone wanted to be associated with my family so they could share some of the pain along with the national population. My family was like a celebrity, but in the way that no one wants to be known: the family with the dead father. The family with a single mother raising one newborn and three toddlers. 

The eyes were and currently are still the worst. Everywhere you would go in 2001, people would whisper. They knew who you were. Your life story. Your struggle. People didn’t want to use the word “Dad” around me, or talk about their dad with me, in fear of triggering bad feelings. To this day, on the anniversary of 9/11, I feel like I am treated differently not only by close friends, but peers, teachers, and strangers in the hallway, giving me the eyes because they heard through the grapevine about my life. I understand that people don’t know what to say to me on 9/11 and they are only trying to make me feel better and be compassionate. I appreciate the effort, but it is always an awkward day for me. Friends that I usually never talk with will text me on 9/11, saying how sorry they are for my loss, how strong I am for coming “this far,” being proud to know a girl like me. That is public tragedy.

Take a girl who has an innate tendency to keep her emotions close to the vest and have her father die in a national terrorist attack – that is a reluctant celebrity. Take a four-year-old who doesn’t have the capacity to understand the death of her father, and now receives special attention and doesn’t understand why - that is a reluctant celebrity. Take an eighteen-year-old who now has personally processed this death, who receives hundreds of messages from well meaning but not close friends - that is a reluctant celebrity.

I push away every feeling of anger, sadness, uncertainty, and anxiety that comes my way. I am happy. If you asked anyone about me, I am loud. I am happy. I am always laughing or smiling. But chip away at the shiny exterior and you’ll find a dark place. Everyone has one. But for me, I feel like I have to put on a brave face, no matter what day of the year it is, because of my situation. I am perceived and told that “I am strong” and that is a heavy burden to carry. So, if I am not feeling “strong” one day, I have to push away the negative feelings, and smile through the anxiety that attacks my body. I bottle everything up, only letting out my happy, sarcastic, humorous sense of the world. This “bottling” causes tremendous stress and strain. The bottle fills slowly with big and little anxieties and upsets. All my negative emotions are not expressed and go directly into the bottle. As you can imagine, the bottle eventually gets full, and one drop can push me over the edge. This results in a release of these strong, negative emotions. When I was younger, these releases did not happen as often, but they built up for months, sometimes years, and when they happened, they were very intense. Over time, these have decreased in intensity because they happen more frequently, and I am able now to release my emotions in a more timely fashion.       

Because my father’s death was so well known, everyone talks about it. I choose not to talk about it because it’s so well known, and I’ve learned it makes people uncomfortable and awkward. I keep it inside. Everyone else keeps it inside, too; 9/11 isn’t really a dinner table topic. When it is talked about, a feeling of sorrow and fear comes up, shutting people down, and ultimately, shutting me down. It has taken me until now to realize how much it has affected me.  The act of dying is natural and normal at the end of ones life. It is not natural or normal to die at the age of 37 due to an act of terrorism. Whether you die of old age or some sudden tragedy or sickness, death is personal and is usually grieved by family and close friends. 

Death is painful, death is scary, and death is final. Death is the ultimate fear. When death happens unexpectedly, the anxiety level of those remaining skyrockets. For my family and me, the sudden death of my father left all of us with a lot of anxiety to deal with, each different than the other. The past 14 years I have come a long way with dealing with the anxiety that was thrown on me at the age of 4. I am now aware of it, and am working towards acknowledging it more in my day-to-day life. The acute fear that I felt during those years after 9/11 have dissipated to the point now, where, when the anniversary comes around, I think of my dad and the positive memories that I have of him and my family. 

Instead of immediately thinking of the Twin Towers, I think of Christmas day, 2000, in matching reindeer pajamas, in my father’s arms, looking straight at the video camera with teary, blues eyes. I remember my dad carrying me down the curvy, green-carpeted staircase, saying that Santa was nice this year and to forget the cold that took over my body a few days before. I think of the blue video camera, and how it zoomed in on me, opening my very first musical instrument present, sparking my fascination with music, while my older sister and brother were already punching themselves with their new Sock em Boppers. And that, I think, is progress.