Anxiety, depression, and everything in between. Let me just start off by saying, you are the worst. You have made it your life goal to control my life and dictate every feeling, and decision I have and will ever make. I wish I had never met you, I wish you would have just stayed far away from me, where you belong. But unfortunately for me, your home was in the genetics. You resided in the depths of my family genes with no way to get out. I wish you had found a way to escape.
Dear Anxiety, I can not recall the first time meeting you. I just remember small situations in grade school, with other girls saying awful things about me. Catty IM's (that's instant messenger for you babies) awful anonymous phone calls, etc. Feeling nauseous, sweaty, and extremely shaky was a common result of these instances. In situations like this, I just wanted to disappear and go back in time to avoid whatever the issue had been. During my younger years with you, I had no idea what you were. I just thought it was a normal feeling and that maybe you would just go away, but you didn’t. You stayed and would fester in my system until my brain felt like the situation was not an issue anymore. This could take two days, sometimes two months.. it all depends. As I grew older I became much more aware of you, and you gradually became worse and worse. From being bullied in middle school, to being told i was not thin enough, or good enough by dance instructors; panic attacks that resulted in trips to the hospital were becoming common. See, I am not going to put all the blame on you, the situations I had been in definitely triggered your involvement. In a way, you have helped me get out of toxic scenarios and situations I knew deep down I should not have continuously put myself in.
Dear Depression, you went hand and hand with anxiety. However, you had a much darker tone. When I was being bullied during middle school, you created voices in my head encouraging the things that the bullies had been telling me. “You are so annoying”, “Nobody likes you, you are so obsessive”, “Kill yourself, honestly nobody would miss you”. You told me all these things were true, and the only way to overcome them was to sulk in your words and hide from the world. I began to hate myself because of you and the more you absorbed my thoughts the worse it became. There were days where I could not get out of bed because I was so terrified of facing the people and thoughts that tortured me on a daily basis. Suicide became a thought that was on my mind more than I would like to admit. In my head, it was the only logical explanation to get out of the hell that i was living in. Thats when I knew going through the motions and letting you control me just wasn't going to work anymore.
When I told my mom about you, she was hesitant to get me to see a therapist. Once she realized how crippling both of you were to my well-being, she came around. In her defense, nobody wants to hear from their child that they don't want to live anymore. They will go to the extreme to try and subside it without needing any help. She came around eventually, when she finally saw how truly broken and helpless I had become. Anyways, my therapist helped a bit, but you both still very obviously existed.
The doctors and many of my family members seemed hesitant when I brought up the topic of medication for you two, as many people would. It is difficult for people who don't suffer from your constant mental ridicule to understand that just "trying to feel better" DOES NOT work, and that you guys do not just go away. A short time later, I started taking medicine for you. It was quite helpful for the first couple of years that I took it. It wasn't all smooth sailing as I'm sure you could imagine, but eventually through therapy and the help of friends and family; I was able to cope on my own. I only had to use medication when I was in a situation where I felt like I needed it and could not deal with it by myself. To this day, you two are still very existent in my life, and you're the actual and literal worst. BUT, I’ve learned how to deal with you, to an extent that is. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that you may have a goal to ruin my life and control me, but I can’t let you do that anymore. There will be times where I give in to the feelings that you two drill into my head, but overall I refuse to be your puppet any longer.
It gets better, I promise it gets better. If you are currently in a situation that you feel is just the end of everything, it's not. The sun will always come up tomorrow and you can get through this. You got this.
