letterstoanxiety

[letterstoanxiety]

Dear Anxiety,

You're with me all the time yet I don't want you.  I can't shake you off though.  You're constantly in the back of my mind, haunting my thoughts, creeping up on me when I finally relax.  I hate you so much.  You make me hate myself, you make me hate others.  You make me realize things that I don't ever want to realize.

I know that there are a lot of people out there who have to deal with you, but because of the things you make me feel, you make me feel as though I'm the only one who suffers.  You fuck up my vision and make me think that everyone out there is happy while I'm not.  I see things in such a bad light when I used to sit around outside finding everything beautiful.  I miss those days.  I miss them so much.

I remember the very day I developed you.  It's so clear in my head because it is such a painful memory that makes me ache.  I had just moved to a new place, a place I was excited for.  Yes it was unfamiliar but I didn't have much friends who were wanting me to stay.  Sure there was only six weeks left into the school year but still, I was excited.  Then you came.  You came and destroyed me.  It was the first day of school.  I woke up stiff and felt my heart go out of control as I was driven a mile down the road to school.  Then when I stepped out of the car, there you were, ready to start destroying me.

You made it look like it was just nervousness at first.  That was to be expected right?  No.  While my mother left me behind I suddenly felt like a little kid going to school for the first time.  I was given a tour and found my body getting hot and heart beat getting so out of control that I started to get dizzy.  The nausea hit me hard.  I thought I honestly had the flu.  By the time I was able to go to class, I was scared shitless. I sat outside, panicking, unable to breath, scared.  Then I threw up. I remember slowly walking between my class and the nurses office, holding my phone and crying.  My angry mother picked me up from school.  She was pissed at me, not you.  She didn't believe you existed.

The rest of that week, I didn't go to school.  Spring Break happened to be the next week.  And every day I would lay on my bed that didn't even have a frame, curled up, crying my eyes out and puking whenever school was mentioned.  You were there, making it worse.  You wouldn't go away.  I started to do research and found out about anxiety disorders.  Once again I told my mother about you and she got mad.  She accused me of making myself sick.  “It's only in your head.  You can make it go away” but I couldn't.  You wouldn't let me.

It wasn't until after the first day I really went to school, FORCED MYSELF, that I realized something.  You can torture me and make me sick, but eventually the things you make me panic about would be resolved.  Yes, you had the power to make me weak and sick, but only for short bursts of times.  After that first day, I was slowly getting better even though I didn't make a single friend.  Summer came around and I thought I was rid of you, forever. But then you came back.  You came back the first day of my Junior year.  But you weren't there when I first performed in front of my drama class.  You were there my first day of my Senior year.  Yet where were you when I performed on stage?  When I was chosen to write a play?

The same shit happened my first day of college and I soon realized that one of my many unidentifiable triggers was change.  I was scared of change.  Starting a new school, changing classes, my routine of sitting around doing nothing....that was it.  Doing nothing.  Once upon a time I used to go out and do sports, I danced and I cheered and I even did a tiny bit of softball. I wanted to try things.  But one day I just didn't want to do them anymore.  During my sophomore year of high school, you had a friend scout me out.  Depression.  I wasn't doing nothing because I was the lazy shit my mother constantly said I was.  No.  I was lazy because of Depression.  Depression made me sit around, it was like a chain and a rock that kept me underwater.  You saw that depression had me and you took me too.  And Finally, near the beginning of my Junior year, I saw all of this and finally sat down with my mother and cried to her telling her everything I felt.  Finally she saw how much pain I was in.  She made me write down every single syptom I felt when you came around and damn it was a long list.  We finally went to a doctor and I finally got medication.  Now, threeish years later, I constantly forget to take my medication and you constantly come back. You make me question every good thing my friend does for me, you make me do double takes on every good occurance.  Hell, every week at work I wonder if they praise me just to make me getting fired the next week easier on them.  

Whenever I get happy about something, I literally have to sit there and ponder on how this could be someone's cruel prank.  This is all thanks to you.  And I'm tired of it.  I'm so fucking tired of it that I want to fight.  I will fight.  I will fight you and make you disappear even if it takes my whole life. I'll take medication every day, I will start doing things that you can't feed off of, I will write these letters telling you about all the bullshit YOU do that is not my fault!  Yes you're in my mind. But you're not an imaginary friend I can grow out of.  You are a parasite that I need to destroy and kill.  You're not wanted and whenever you attack me, I will write another fucking letter and shove it down your throat.

Ready to stand up,

Caitlyn