She walks tall with an acute
self-awareness. Her face is one of understanding and hides an old soul deep
within. As she talks, she is full of
compassion, love, and humor. Her fashion
sense is funky, yet classy. Everyone who sees her seems to be eternally jealous
of her spunky earrings and flower head bands she wears. She’s not
materialistic, but pleasing to observe as she selflessly goes about her
day. Her personality shines through her
plethora of music CD’s and band merchandise. It ranges anywhere from Twenty One
Pilots to Green Day, One Direction to Coldplay, and The Fray. You can’t help but laugh at her hilarious
stories she tells. She must have
telepathy, because she can sense how you’re feeling just by being around her.
Love seems to leak from her every pore, and not just to her friends. But don’t be fooled into thinking her life is
perfect and that she’s got everything worked out. Behind her smiling face is a
hidden secret, a locked door. Alexa Bingen deals with a general anxiety
disorder and depersonalization. What I love most about her is that she’s not
too proud to ask for help and make late night phone calls to some friends.
Alexa
is 19 years old and is a freshman at the University of Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
She grew up on the outskirts of Slinger, a small rural town in southeast Wisconsin.
It was there that she went to elementary, middle, and high school. She has a mom, dad, older brother, and a soon
to be sister-in-law. Her grandpa started
dying when she was five due to cancer, so he lived in their house while her
family took care of him. One day he died
there, which was the beginning of a long and torturous journey of her life.
Since then, Alexa has had numberless panic attacks and lots of anxiety. She’s
not sure if her grandpa’s death was the cause of it or not but it definitely
affected her in unexpected ways. “I grew up with a general anxiety disorder and
it also made it hard because my mom had Multiple Sclerosis, she still has it,
and it was really bad. She had to walk with a walker, and they said she’d have
to be in a wheel chair if it got any worse.”
Her mother is getting better every day, but she’s still not the
best. While in elementary school, Alexa
would get constant stomachaches from her anxiety and worried too much about her
mom and if she was ok. The nurses had to constantly reassure her that
everything was fine and send her back to class. Because of this, she became
good friends with the secretary in the nurse’s office. She would worry about the most irrational
things, such as having a heart attack while her school was promoting heart
attack awareness in a gym class.
Therapy helped as
a kid, but not so much now. During her
middle school and freshman years, she felt “normal” again. “Panic attacks, they make you feel like you
don’t exist for a few minutes, and it’s a really scary feeling, thinking that
you never existed before.
Depersonalization is like you’re not even there, like you’re living a
movie. It was a constant feeling that faced me. And then the fear of having
another panic attack, it keeps you from doing anything.” Scary, right? Well,
this has been her life ever since she was a young child. As a junior, Alexa was put on medication that
would take six weeks to work. That’s a long and daunting time for you to battle
your demons alone. When she started
having bad anxiety and panic attacks in high school, she was hesitant to tell
her mom. But after a while, she told her
mom, even though she didn’t fully understand what was going on.
Her mom, Kathy Bingen, was very supportive in
trying to help her daughter get better by looking at online forums and watching
multiple YouTube videos. Alexa explained
how senior year was really good for her because even though she had a few slip
ups, she was in more control of them.
“Even though I wasn’t having panic attacks, things weren’t getting
better, so I went back to therapy. They
weren’t able to help me. I wouldn’t suggest going to a therapist because I don’t
even think they help. They kept asking “Why do you think you feel this way?”
and I had no idea why I felt like that way. It just kind of happened, how I
developed this condition. Instead of
helping me they would just ask me a bunch of questions. They get paid so much
and they weren’t even helping me.” Just before her senior year, Alexa had a
really bad panic attack, and depersonalization settled in and sent her into
“zombie mode”. She described it as
never wanting to do anything but sit around and sleep. Her and her family prayed about the situation
she was in and decided on seeing a local hypnotist, which seemed to help a
lot. More and more appointments were
being made as she started seeing improvements. That miracle working hypnotist
taught her techniques to use while having a panic attack. Looking back at the
times when she would have nearly four in one day, Alexa can’t believe that she
ever made it through that difficult time of her life.
Many
people, including myself, don’t fully understand what depersonalization is, so
I asked for some further clarification.
“Depersonalization is pretty rare. A lot of people have it in the world
but it’s not that common. It’s kind of like post-traumatic stress disorder,
where a lot of people have it but it’s not too common. It’s for people who had
an addiction to pot and it went wrong or people who had a really traumatic life
experience, so I don’t really know why mine developed.” But she kept going, kept living her life. Alexa commented on religion and how it helped
her through this. It was a big factor and without it, she may have spiraled
into a horrible depression. She has never had thoughts of self-harm or suicide.
“I was kind of under this impression that I could get through this and that
it’s going to get better. I never had a thought that I was going to lose total
control over everything.”
Alexa
Bingen was the Assistant Music Director for the school plays at Slinger High
School. Not many people get such a
special role, but she got it through hard work and a couple years of being on
stage crew. As she progressed, she was able to watch all of the younger
students grow and develop their talents.
“I was able to prove to others that I’m a good leader and that I can do
things that didn’t seem possible. I could handle things and prove that I don’t
give up. It was a really amazing experience and I learned a lot about myself along
the way as well.” Throughout high school, Alexa had a strong love for the
theater. Many of the friends she has now
are friends forged in the deep fires of musicals and plays. This fall, Alexa
went back to visit them and saw their fall production. She related to me how
she started crying at the end because she loved seeing them grow up to their
full potential.
Music
can be a form of therapy, and this was the case for Alexa. “I listened to the Beatles in the eighth grade,
which was during the period where I was ok.” Green Day was the band she
listened to when everything seemed to be going downhill for her. During her senior year, she discovered Twenty
One Pilots, “they explain how you feel in their lyrics more than anyone else
can.” Here we see just how influential
music can be in a person’s life and mood. When it comes to worship music,
sometimes she’ll listen to it late at night, become inspired, and won’t be able
to get enough sleep for her eight o’clock class.
Even
though life is not perfect, she works her hardest every day to overcome her
fears and anxiety. She attends college and continues making new friends and
embarrassing stories to blog about. Her
blog has had over 500 views and her friends always love reading what she has to
say. “My friend from Cru was wondering if I had posted anything else because he
loves reading them. I didn’t even think he would take time out of his busy
schedule to read what I write. He
actually reads it! It’s really
encouraging so I have been inspired to post even more.”
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