I want you to know that I hate you. I hate how you don’t let me enjoy spending time with my friends without the fear of forgetting to do something that you deem more important. I hate that you don’t let me enjoy car rides, with music blaring and windows down without the crippling fear of the car crashing. I hate that you don’t let me live the life that I desperately want to live because I am always worrying, worrying, worrying.

I would love to go hiking, if it wasn’t for the constant fear of getting lost or running into a bear that would make me curl on the ground, unable to move. I would love to go out with friends, but you make me remember that that one answer on my homework just didn’t sound right, and plead with me to go spend hours upon hours fixing it. I would love to yell at the people who have done me wrong without the fear that everyone, including my friends, will hate me for it, or that I’ll get pegged as “that crazy person”. I would love to be able to talk in a meeting or an interview without my hands shaking so badly that it looks as though there is an earthquake ravaging inside of them. I would love to make a decision about literally anything without worrying that it’s the wrong choice and that others couldn’t possibly want to do what I like to do.

I would be able to do all of these things, if it weren’t for you.

But there you sit. In the deep corners and crevices of my mind, not enough to take over, but enough that I could never forget that you are there, lurking, waiting for the perfect time to come out and ruin any and every amount of fun that I am or should be having. You wait for the most inopportune times, and then you spring with a massive to-do list of projects that don’t even need done and the vacant memories full of all the awkward things I’ve done over the years, that everyone else has most definitely forgotten about.

The worst is when I settle into bed at night, and you use the flicking of the light switch from on to off as your cue to appear with thoughts of everything that I have and haven’t done, the people who are probably angry with me because of something that I said or did, the self-loathing and thoughts of never being good enough because of your impossible standards, and all of the other terrible qualities that make you the ugly beast that you are, that are just too many to name.

I’ve tried so hard to leave you behind, but every time I take a step outside of your comfort zone, you pull me ten steps back with another panic attack. You make me feel like I am stuck in the middle of the ocean, with the water threatening to pull me under at any sign of weakness or with one wrong move. You make me feel that I can never be good enough, and that I don’t deserve the great people that are in my life. Because of you, every time that my friends are busy, I automatically think that they are just looking for an excuse to not have to hang out with me. You make me see every inadequacy that is a part of me, when all that I desperately want is to love myself.

Hate is a strong word, but I don’t care. I hate you.