Growing up, words have always been my release. Every word I've ever said since I was the age of 3 has been intentional. Every word chosen to convey a certain emotion, mood, tone and story. And even more so once I learned that I had an anxiety disorder. Every time I say or write something, I choose each word for it's specific meaning and how it gets across to people what I mean. I have never used a word and not mean it. When I tell lies, I carefully plan how I will say it so that it can be the most beneficial to me, especially when I want the conversation to head a certain way. Every story I tell, every rebuttal to an argument, every confession...

As a kid, I used words as an escape from the constant loneliness I felt. I would weave stories in my head and sit by myself writing them down or speaking to myself as if there were more than one person sitting in the room. Books were, more often than not, my friends because they conveyed emotions that I could understand better than than any of my friends in school. Speaking of school, I put my skills with words to good use. I used my words to write poems, and stories and essays. I went through 12 years of schooling with an A in nearly every English class I ever had. Words were a constant comfort. Whenever I was confused about how someone else felt because I couldn't tell from their words, I made sure that my words were even more descriptive. I took pride in being told that I was so articulate for someone my age. It was the only praise that mattered much of anything to me.

I use my words even more carefully, now, than I ever did before I developed an anxiety disorder. Nowadays, I focus so carefully on my words because in my head I constantly have this fear that if I use the wrong word or phrase that people won't understand me and get upset. I am irrationally afraid of using the wrong word and not being able to get people to understand what's happening in my head. Words are both something that causes me anxiety and relieves it. It's so complicated and it makes my head hurt when I try to express how it does this.

I'm an introvert by nature, but I can be so talkative with close friends for two reasons. The first reason is because I feel so comfortable with close friends that I am able to not be so anxious about my words. The second reason is more of a by-product of the anxiety. I talk to fill the silence that makes me so uncomfortable. I fill the air with constant words and jokes and discussions. Because in my head, if I don't do that than the dark lonely silence will swallow me whole. I may not be alone in the room but the silence makes me lonely. The silence feels as though the words I sought comfort in, have abandoned me in my time of need. So I risk annoying people with my constant noise and causing my anxiety to flare up because the alternative is as close to death as I can feel without physically dying.

Words are the pain relievers, my proverbial aspirin. They fill me with life like nothing else. I take joy in words in everything around me. The music I listen to, the books I read, the conversations I participate in, the stories I tell... I live because words help me live far past their intended use. And I thank every day for the words.