I was with you when the feeling came back. It was the first time in years that it became so overwhelming it brought me to my knees and had me gasping for air. It was worse this time around. It started off as this weight on my shoulders that I couldn’t relieve myself from. Every action or decision I made, I was never fully satisfied with. I still felt like I was disappointing you even though you pleaded I wasn’t. I knew you were lying. The weight on my shoulders suddenly shifted to a weight on my heart. I became so withdrawn and self-conscious that I could barely recognize myself. You’d ask all the time, “What’s wrong, Emily?” and I could never give you a straight answer other than “nothing,” and “I don’t know.” I hated myself for it.

Why didn’t I see it then? Why couldn’t I tell you it was back? What was I afraid of?

It was the persistent overthinking and anxiety that drove me deeper into it. My anxiety had found its way into my nightmares. I couldn’t escape from it because every time I closed my eyes I saw into my future.

I saw nothing.

I saw this deep, dark abyss of absolutely nothing.

At this point, I was suffocating. It was rage fueled anxiety that had me punching holes in the walls of my bedroom and screaming, “ God, please, fucking help me!”

But, you stood there. You watched me slowing killing myself and you did nothing. You watched me shoving pills down my throat, bottle after bottle, and you never called for help. When I begged you to help me you asked me, “Why are you doing this to me?” as if my depression was something to be controlled.

I stopped begging you for help. I waited it out. Each attack and relapse, I waited out. I was making you happy, wasn’t I? This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? You wanted me to leave you alone. You didn’t want to keep finding suicide letters crumbled up in the trash can of my bedroom. You didn’t want to hold me in your arms as I broke down crying. You didn’t want to help me catch my breath anymore. You left me in the dark.

You left me in the dark. You distanced yourself but you still said, “I love you, Emily. I’ll never leave you.” You lied every time you said you were going to bed because you were really going out with him, the guy without depression. You told me there was no one else but you still got up and walked away during dinner whenever he would call. You stopped coming over. You stopped replying to my texts and answering my calls. You weren’t there when I needed you.

Everyone warned me about you. They said you were the poison in my veins. They said you were as evil as a thorn on a rose.

You were the reason I was angry.

You were the reason I was depressed.

You were the reason I was afraid to close my eyes at night.

You absolutely hated me. You got so enraged it became abusive both physically and mentally. It became screaming at me, “You’re pathetic and worthless, please, just leave me alone! You should just kill yourself already!”

We were together for three years and I still told you, “I love you.”

You watched me turn over and cry after you insisted we ‘make love’ when I begged you to stop.

You told me I wasn’t good enough for you.

You told me no one would ever love me the way you did.

And, I still told you, “I love you.”

It took one night. One more argument after three years for me to finally hit my breaking point. I became so angry that I left you. I wasn’t in love with you. I had never been in love with you. I realized then, I was only dependent on you and you no longer needed me to fill your void.

I let go of myself that night. I had bottles of pills laid out next to my bed and I was crying through the pain when suddenly my phone began to ring but it wasn’t you, it was someone else. It was someone who cared. It was someone who knew what I was about to do and choose to stop me unlike you. He stood on the phone with me for two hours and talked me out of it the night we broke up.

It’s been a year since we broke up and I no longer pop pills. I no longer have rage fueled anxiety attacks. I no longer suffer from depression or want to kill myself anymore.

I met someone else who talks me through it and encourages me. I am self confident and I absolutely love my life.

My chapter started with you but it will not end with you.

I am not afraid of you anymore.

I am thankful for you.