Dear Anxiety,

You are both a necessity and a burden.You make things harder when they do not need to be. You tend to make me feel more insecure about myself than I should. I overthink every decision I make because of you. You make me afraid to do anything anymore. Why do I let you have this power over me? Why do you make it impossible to feel confident about myself and all the decisions I make?

You make me have to find things to calm my mind. You make me have to go out more because in my head you are all I hear. I cannot look in the mirror because I can hear you comment about my dress, my pants, my shoes, my shirt and my hair. I cannot go out on a date because you are in my head dialoguing everything we ever say to one another until I come home and stress about what I could have done wrong, when really, it was just you making me so nervous I couldn’t talk. I could not look him in the eye; I could not trust anything he was telling me because maybe it was a lie.

You are my biggest enemy, my biggest downfall, and yet you have become the necessity I need in life. You make me aware of everything around me now. You make me take things slow when I meet new people. You give me adrenaline when I’m afraid. You make me think longer and harder. You make me have to plan everything out so my day goes exactly right. You may be a great big pain, but you make me better.

So to my anxiety, I ask that you let me have more days than most to be normal. Let me be who I am without feeling as though I may be wrong. Keep me aware of the things I may choose to ignore. Be my equal, be my friend. Because I know I will always need you in the end.

Love your anxious friend.