My Doctor Told Me My Pain Was All in My Head. It Ended Up Saving Me.

It began with a pulled muscle. Each day after school, as the sun sank dusky purple over the hills of my hometown, I'd run with my track teammates. Even on our easy days, I'd bound ahead, leaving them behind. It wasn't that I thought myself better than them--it's that when I ran fast, and focused on nothing but the cold air burning my lungs and my feet pounding, my normally anxious thoughts turned to white noise. I limped a little, and then tried running again: sharp, hot pain radiated down my thigh. Panic flooded me, as I imagined weeks without running: weeks without a predictable break from my own thoughts, weeks immersed in adolescent loneliness.