Content Warning: Self-Harm, Mental Health, Suicidal Thoughts

I always wondered what was happening to me when I all of a sudden felt sad after being happy two minutes ago. I was curious why I had this feeling in my chest that wouldn't go away as if someone kept punching me over and over again. I didn't know why I was having memories flood in like waves crashing against the shores that made nightmares at night more vivid.

I didn't realize what was happening or going on until I asked for help to make it stop. I put names to what I was feeling: depression, anxiety, PTSD.

I now saw myself as a statistic instead of a person. I was seen as a negative stigma rather than a somebody who was just like everyone else. I didn't find worth in myself because you, my mental health, took over my happiness, joy, personality, and life. Three years I have struggled to understand what was happening each time I had a panic attack, outbursts of tears or the feeling of emptiness every single day. The feeling of death was more beautiful than seeing the sunshine, my family or favorite things.

I hurt myself in order to let the pain go. The feelings in my head took over my common sense for split moments of relief. When I felt like I could breathe for the first time I had to feel pain. The only emotion that I felt for over two years. The scars remind me that you made me do something I could never understand myself doing now.

I wished so hard that you would leave my mind, body and soul. I wished each night that everything would be fine and go back to "normal." I would go back to the bubbly and carefree soul I know I have always been that my friends fell in love with.

For years, you have stopped me from doing what I have always wanted to do. I failed classes, I gained 60 pounds, I was alone. I let you control me until I was just a living, breathing body. No emotion. No purpose. Nothing.

I was a nothing.

But not anymore.

I am a somebody with a purpose, feelings, direction and potential.

You don't own me anymore. You do not control me from pursuing what I want to do in my life. You do not have my happiness, my love for everything around me, my potential, but the most important thing you do not own that has become my prized possession.

My life.

I have moments of sadness I cannot control, anxiety attacks out of nowhere and graphic memories of events I have pushed back. However, I know how to control you. I know how to not let you be me instead of me be you.

I live with you, depression, anxiety and PTSD, but you are not my life. You do not run the show anymore. I do. Why, might you ask?

Because I earned a life I didn't recognize as worthy. I am worthy and enough of a life you told me I didn't deserve.

And look at me now. I am not my mental illnesses: I am me.