I know I write a lot about my anxiety, but it's something that greatly affects me every day. Over the years, I have found many different ways to cope with my anxiety. One coping mechanism that I discovered is personifying my anxiety.

I call my anxiety by a name of a person that I don't know. I named it after someone I don't know or hasn't affected my life in a significant way because I don't want to look at that person a certain way because I named my anxiety after them.

My anxiety's name is Kathy.

Kathy is not a good friend. She is ALWAYS around and for NO reason. She likes to randomly show up and cause problems for me out of nowhere. She makes my heart race and she gives me butterflies, but not in a good way.

She makes me sick.

She doesn’t let me go to parties or social gatherings without her. She doesn’t let me eat in front of people I don’t know that well. She makes me so self-conscious and I don’t know why. I wish I could get rid of her completely.

I mean, I try so many different things to get her to leave, but she never does. It feels like she’s always there and there’s no way to get rid of her for good. I talk about her all the time and she knows, but it’s like she doesn’t care that I can’t stand her.

She stays anyway.

Today, I was on the bus going to school, just listening to music and trying to mind my own business. She just randomly shows up...OUT OF NOWHERE. However, she did decide to leave me alone when I went to talk to my boyfriend before homeroom. Then she came back when I was in homeroom and stayed with me until lunch when I’m with my boyfriend again.

Maybe she’s scared of him.

Sometimes, she is there right when I wake up, and then I can’t eat anything because she won’t leave me ALONE. Can’t I just have ONE day without her? Does she always have to be around? I just need a little space to breathe.

Yesterday, I was in class and she sat right next to me. She kept scooting closer and closer until I couldn’t breathe. I started sweating. All these thoughts started swarming my mind and I couldn’t focus on my work.

She always makes me second-guess myself. For instance, I sneezed today and she said, “Ew, what the heck was that? That was such a weird noise." Today I was talking to my boyfriend before class, and I said something. Right when I walked away, she came up to me and told me that he was probably judging me for what I just said and that he's probably SO weirded out by me now.

I don’t even remember meeting Kathy; she just showed up one day. I used to be able to deal with her, but then I realized who she really is and I figured that I need to get rid of her.