Last week, I wrote an article about taking the next step toward ending the stigma on mental illness. I encouraged my readers to share their stories with a person they trust and I said I would share my story in an article as well. I had a very difficult time trying to decide how to tell my story where it could be best displayed, I decided on a letter from the perspective of my 10 year old self, when I first experienced the struggles of anxiety. Below is my letter and my story in the form of the experiences I have had with anxiety in the last 10 years.

Dear Anxiety,

I don’t like you.

There I said it and now I can move on.

I wish it was that simple…

By now you have probably heard countless stories about how you have taken a person life and turned it upside down, inside out and back again about a million times. But you don’t care. You aren’t some ghost or bug that can be destroyed or told is not real because you are the person you attack. You take the happy, confident person and barricade them in their own thoughts. You then replace them in the human form with a worrisome anxious shell of themselves, who lost the sparkle they once had. You have hurt too many people and been the barrier that some people can’t figure out how to break.

You leave your victims feeling guilty and scared about things so obscure and unrealistic to observers that they wonder “what is wrong with them?”

However, the worst part of you is not what you do, but who you attack.

You attack previously happy adults who wake up one day, feeling lost with what they are doing with their lives and feeling suddenly unfulfilled. You rob teenagers of some of the best years of their lives by forcing them to figure out their whole life while working their butts off to prepare themselves for a future they are expected to have. But your worst victims are kids. Innocent little kids like 10 year old girls who can’t even explain how they feel, but are terrified to watch the evening news because they believe the horrible events of the world are going to come to their doorstep and their bedroom window and literally attack them.

Who do you think you are?

Today that same 10 year old girl is 20 years old and has had anxiety be a part of her life for 10 years. Half of her life has been impacted by you in some way and yet you still believe that you deserve to be part of it. Your power has impacted her thoughts for so long, she doesn’t remember what it is like to live without you. She has been to many doctors and therapists, changed her diet, taken nutritional supplements, practiced mindfulness strategies and been put on medication, yet you still won’t go away. You first snuck into her life when her mother suffered from anxiety, but even once her mother got better, you decided that this little girl’s recovery was going to take more than a tiny pill to help her get her life back.

Her life back, her life has barely even started.

She is ready to do everything she can to become the person she wants to be and is not going to let you control her life anymore. It may not happen overnight, but any step toward saying “no” toward anxiety is a step in the right direction.

So, anxiety, it’s time that you let your victims find the key to their recovery and slowly let their old happy self out.

It’s the least you can do.

Sincerely,

A 10-year-old girl turned 20.

I am thinking of all the people who need a boost of confidence this week, and believe that the barrier in front of you, whether it be mental illness or something different can be broken down eventually. My barrier is very much still a part of me, but I am ready to whatever it takes to break it down.