Nearly every morning I wake up to the same immobilizing fear. It creeps into my bedroom, like a wolf and jumps on top of me with suffocating heaviness, making me curl up and feel totally unable to face the day. This fear can be explained in three words. Fear of rejection. Will I be cared about today? Will I be wanted? Or will today be the day that a friend starts to act distant toward me, stops answering my texts and fades out of my life? After I've pulled myself out of bed and walked to the kitchen, while my fear pants close at my heals, the first thing I do is check my phone and Facebook and if I've found a sweet message from a friend, the wolf lays down, but it doesn't go away since there are plenty of hours left for the rejection to happen. If I've texted or messaged a friend a couple days ago, and they haven't answered, the wolf stands up, comes very close and his green eyes shine threateningly. If I see on Facebook, that a friend has hung out with other friends, when they said to me the day before that they would have to focus only on school for a few days, the growl grows loud behind me and in my brain echoes the words, I'm not wanted... As I drive to school I worry that my friends won't notice me today, that they won't make any time for me, or I worry that even if they do sit with me on break, that they will be distant and distracted again. When I go to class, if the friend who had sat next to me for weeks, slides into the desk next to mine and seems glad to see me, the wolf walks away. But if that friend suddenly sits in a seat farther away, and walks out of class when it's done without a word to me, or if that friend is totally preoccupied with talking to other people, that hairy beast jogs up next to me and jumps on top of me, making it almost impossible to breathe. The rest of the day is spent, as the start of it was, in obsessing and worrying. Every time a friend doesn't act as they normally would to me, every time a friend doesn't offer me a hug (when they always used to), doesn't make any time to ask me how I am doing or doesn't express a sign that they care about me, I feel rejected. Every time a friend shows that they do care, I feel wonderful, but only for a little while. I end the day, sobbing in bed because that nasty wolf hasn't stopped growling ever since I received only a distracted or brief reply from the friend I had texted, which showed me that they were still too busy for me. Welcome to the life of a person who, due to having had many friendships fall apart, and many loved ones become distant, has become an insecure mess when it comes to relationships. And the worst part is, no matter how sweet and consistent a friend is to me, it takes years of them sticking around, years of them showing me consistently that they care about me, before I stop worrying every day that they are going to get tired of me, become distant, or that they are going to get too busy and not care enough about me to make time to text or hang out. It's happened so many times. I'm sick of this furry beast, but I don't know how to get rid of it. It's a controlling, exhausting, problem and I'm tired of it. I've tried so hard to force it away, but it seems to be attached, deep inside me. I feel like I'm going to be stuck with it forever.