Dear Anxiety,

I thought about writing this letter as if I am greeting an old friend, but I realized I cannot do that because you are no friend of mine. You have always been more of a frenemy to me. You are my enemy until I enter hard times.

When I enter hard times, you are all I have, so I embrace you. You are an easy yet toxic pattern to fall back into when I face obstacles. You are the most unhealthy parts of my brain, poisoning the healthiest parts of me. You are the first thing to comfort me when I feel alone, but you are also the reason I feel alone.

You are the abusive boyfriend I cannot seem to leave. Because just when I begin to think I am getting away from you, and that I am strong enough to overcome your abuse, you tell me you love me and you are just looking out for me, and I crumble into your waiting, hungry arms again.

You are the mental illness that despite the way you torture me, I still get nervous when you’re not around because I think there is something wrong. But when you’re here, I think everything is wrong, because when you are here, everything is wrong.

You haunt every stretch of my brain and poison the parts of myself I am most proud of. You make me weak, despite my pride in my strength. You make me insecure, despite my confidence. You make me believe I am difficult to love, despite the fact that I am proud of my approachable and easy going nature.

I have fought many opponents in my 20 years on earth. I have defeated heartbreak, abuse, trauma, depression, self-loathing, self-harm, and many more. but you, Anxiety, are by far the toughest one to face. For years I have fought to regain control of my own mind from you, and every time I begin to think I am winning, you gain a second wind and begin to knock me on my ass once again. You are the monster within me that I so desperately wish I could silence once and for all.

You are not my friend. You are not my enemy. You are just a thing, a beast, I must become smarter than. A beast I must learn to play with instead of fear. A beast I must tame in order to continue on this path of mine.

You are not me. I am not you. I am not Anxiety, I am me. And one day, that is all that will matter. Because I will have finally silenced you, and won my toughest battle against my toughest opponent: my own mind.