I used to hide behind my camera. Literally. Social anxiety made it easier to view the world through a lens than face it head-on. Back then, I was just Amanda – the quiet HR assistant who took “nice photos” of her coffee cups and city walks to cope with panic attacks.
Today, my photos hang in galleries, and my Instagram following just hit 1.2 million. But the real story isn’t about numbers – it’s about finding yourself in the frames between fear and freedom.
That first panic attack hit in the middle of a quarterly business meeting. Heart racing, palms sweating, the world spinning. I mumbled something about feeling sick and practically ran out of the office. Instead of going back in, I walked. And walked. And for the first time, I really looked at my city.
The late autumn sun was hitting the old brick buildings in a way that made them glow like ember. Without thinking, I pulled out my iPhone and snapped a photo. Looking at life through my phone screen somehow made it less overwhelming. It became my coping mechanism – whenever anxiety crept in, I’d focus on finding beauty to capture.
My Instagram started as a diary of these anxiety walks. Coffee cups in morning light. Puddles reflecting skyscrapers. Pigeons on weathered windowsills. Each photo represented a moment when I chose to breathe through fear instead of letting it win.
Then came the comment that changed everything: “Your photos make me feel peaceful. Like the world isn’t such a scary place.”
It was from someone named Sarah, who shared that she also struggled with anxiety. Suddenly, my private photo journal had a purpose bigger than myself.
I started sharing not just the photos, but the stories behind them. “Today’s panic attack led me to this hidden bookstore,” I’d write, posting a shot of sunlight streaming through dusty shelves. People responded – not just with likes, but with their own stories of struggle and survival.
The turning point came six months in. A local café owner messaged me about my photo of their storefront in morning light. Would I be interested in shooting their new menu items? My hands shook as I typed “yes,” terrified of moving from behind my safe screen into real professional interaction.
That first shoot was a disaster – at least, that’s what my anxiety told me. My hands trembled so badly I had to take breaks to breathe. But when I sent the photos, the café owner was ecstatic. “You captured exactly how it feels to have that first sip of morning coffee,” she said.
Word spread in the local business community. More cafés. Then restaurants. Then boutiques. Each shoot forced me to step a little further out of my comfort zone. Each interaction taught me that people saw strength in me, even when I felt weak.
My following grew, but more importantly, my confidence did too. I started hosting “Anxiety Warriors Photo Walks” – small groups of people who, like me, found peace in photography. We’d walk together, shoot together, breathe together. Some days I still felt panicky, but now I had a community that understood.
A year into my journey, a major camera brand reached out. They’d been following my story and wanted me to try their new camera line. The contract they offered was more than my yearly HR salary. That night, I sat on my floor surrounded by printed photos from my journey – coffee cups, cityscapes, strangers’ smiles – and cried.
I quit my HR job the next week. My boss, who’d followed my Instagram journey, hugged me and said, “You were always meant to show others how to see beauty in the scary parts of life.”
Today, I run photography workshops specifically for people with anxiety and depression. We call it “Healing Through Lenses.” Last month, one of my first students launched her own successful photography business. When she credited me at her first gallery opening, I realized something profound: sometimes our deepest wounds become our greatest gifts to the world.
My latest project is a photo book called “Finding Light: A Journey Through Anxiety One Frame at a Time.” It pairs my photos with stories from the moments they were taken – the panic attacks, the breakthroughs, the healing. It’s currently a bestseller in three categories on Amazon, but the review that means the most came from a teenager in Kansas: “Your photos make me brave enough to leave my house on bad days.”
Last week, I had a panic attack before a major speaking engagement about mental health and creativity. But instead of running away, I took a photo of my shaking hands holding my presentation notes. I posted it with the caption: “Fear and courage can coexist in the same frame.” It became my most liked post ever.
My therapist recently asked me if I still use photography to escape anxiety. I had to think about it. “No,” I realized. “I use it to face it. To transform it. To show others they can too.”
P.S. That first photo of sun on brick buildings still hangs in my office. Under it, I’ve framed my old HR badge next to my first professional camera. They remind me that every journey starts with a single frame, and that sometimes our biggest struggles lead us straight to our dreams – we just have to be brave enough to capture them.
