Every experience with mental illness is different. Here is a glimpse of my story:

Dear Anxiety,

You don't even knock before entering my mind. I want you to know that you aren't welcome. You may be genetic, but that doesn't give you permission to enter.

Your friend Depression isn't welcome either. I hate the way you two gang up on me. Therapy helps sometimes, and I take pills to drive you away, but you still keep breaking in and tainting my thoughts with guilt, doubt and self-deprecation.

Some days I try to embrace you. If I love you then maybe you won't hurt me anymore. I try to see you as a force that makes me alert and productive. If I am anxious and worrying about something then at least it means I care a lot, I tell myself. But you make me incapable of talking to people or asking for help.

I keep telling myself I'll be fine. Just breathe through the panic attacks. Things are going to be okay. Others tell me it will get better. Some days it is, but some days it isn't. Some days I see you as a part of me. Other days you're a separate entity. On the worst days, you are me.

You would think that empathy would help, but it doesn't. I feel the weight of others' problems in addition to my own. I need time alone to recharge, but I can never say no to someone who needs me. Instead of discussing my problems I become the counselor. I love when I can help someone, but when I fail you make sure I don't forget.

You make me feel like a burden. You make me feel unimportant. You make me feel like my life is secondary to those around me.

Apathy is never an issue until your friend Depression makes as visit. I feel empty when he arrives. He robs me of all motivation and makes me feel like I'm mourning the loss of a loved one. Tell him to stop pressing down on my chest and making me immobile. Tell him I hate being unable to talk to people while desperately needing human interaction. Tell him I don't want to feel alone even when I'm with others.

My aunt once said that worrying is an olympic sport in my family. It's true. We joke about it, but it's our fatal flaw. Life is hard when your natural tendency is pessimism and doubt. I understand the need for occasional worry, but there is a limit. Once worrying gets in the way of living life it needs to stop.

The worst is knowing that my thoughts, worries and doubts are often irrational, but I still feel them as strongly as if I believed they were true.

Please stop keeping me up at night with your endless negative thoughts about the future. You launch me years ahead and keep me from enjoying the present.

The self-doubt isn't helping either. There is humility and then there is self-defeat. I'm tired of you making me feel discouraged before I've even failed.

I want to silence you. I want to feel hopeful for myself and not just for others. I will keep using the power of writing against you, exposing you for what you are through words on a page.

I am not you,

Julia

If you are interested, here is a very accurate comic about what it is like to have anxiety and depression.