Dear Anxiety,

I always knew you were there, ever since I was little. I buried you deep in the bottom of my mind and as long as I stayed in control, you could not beat me. I had my life. I loved my friends. I loved my family. I had never moved. I was comfortable and used to everything around me.

But then I went to college. I moved away from all of the known and comfortable aspects of my life. And you came out from where I had hid you, rearing your ugly head before I could even begin my freshman year. At first, I thought you were just homesickness. It’s normal for kids to miss their family after they first move out. Except all the kids beside me during our freshmen invocation weren’t having panic attacks and hiding in the bathroom.

Most kids remember their first week at college because of all the new exciting memories being made. During my first week, you pulled me from the pews of the chapel while the president was welcoming my class. You pushed me down the hall to the back door to find the little bathroom in the back. You locked me in there and intimidated me to tears. You made me feel like a little girl as I wondered how I would ever live in the big, unknown world all by myself. I knew no one at Berry. I knew where nothing was. And I couldn’t escape the crushing panic you gifted me right after my parents drove away.

And that night, as I stared at the ceiling instead of sleeping, thoughts you had so kindly shared with me raced through my head. “Will I ever be happy again?” “Am I capable of being an adult by myself?” “How will I live through four years of this? Maybe I shouldn’t.” “Why are you crying so much, you baby?” “Is this real? Am I real?” I started questioning everything around me and I couldn’t enjoy anything. The only emotion you let me feel was fear and depression. After a few weeks, my brain grew sore and my soul grew tired. I was staring up at the world around me for a ten-foot deep hole, and I could see no way up.

But slowly, as I drew up all the courage I had and started going out of my room, I went out to things. The dances, the plays, barbecues. I stroke up a conversation with the people sitting around me in class and luckily some of them became my friends. I kept trying to feel like myself again. I don’t know what made me keep trying, what made me strong enough, but somehow I was. I called my mom and told her about you. I prayed to God before I went to sleep and asked him to just get rid of you. And day by day, I would do more outside of my head and cry less.

I realized a little while ago what it was exactly that beat you-I stopped caring. Every time I would go out with a new friend and enjoy myself a little bit, it dawned on me that despite your horrible presence in my head, I was still capable of having fun, living. I am such a perfectionist that at first, I tried everything to beat you. I googled how to beat anxiety and depression. But the answer was easier than I knew-if I stop trying to overpower you, then I stop thinking about you, and then slowly you don’t matter.

For so long I thought that my mind was beating me because everywhere I looked, you were glaring back at me. But that was such bullshit-after all, I am in control of how I feel. I am the master of my own mind. And you are now under my control.