Today, as I'm sitting wide awake at 12 AM in my bed when I should be sound asleep, I can't help but try and get you out of my head. But, thinking and trying only keep you safer in my head, so I try and occupy myself - but I can only seem to scroll endlessly on social media and not even look at what I'm scrolling past because the burden of you all are now suffocating my head and becoming the contacts that are blinding me. It starts with a baby step and then I'm drowning in a cage with an anchor pulling me down.

Dear overthinking: You make me feel incredibly smart because I can think a million scenarios and outcomes in a matter of 30 seconds maybe even less. But you see, that's the trigger that's what makes my blood begin to boil - the thoughts consume the calm that is left of me and I will try to reassure myself somehow, whether it's a text to someone or a 20-minute drive while talking myself the whole time. If I don't get a text back, I constantly see myself looking at the message every five minutes, and if I don't convince myself on that car ride by the time I get home, consider my thoughts just blown up.

Dear fear: This is where you sneak through the little hope that's left of me and run through me like a waterfall and shock my whole body the the point where my body starts to fight for it's life. My heart races trying to pump blood through as fast as it can like a race to save me from how deep this is becoming where I want to pull my hair out because I no longer have any control left of my body. It's like needing to pinch yourself and say "IS THIS REAL WAKE UP WAKE UP!"

Dear anxiety: This is where you make me feel like I have something and nothing at the same time. This is when the fear and the overthinking have come so far that I now feel broken and damaged - like I have no one and anyone that tries to help is against me and that if you walk out of the room, I think you will leave and never come back.

Dear panic: You're the last piece before I snap out of the hell I just survived. You're the one I need to vent to someone before I give up since I've tried everything. But lastly, these situations hit me all at once all together, and can either last from five minutes to five hours. Society has made the word "anxiety" popular and it's made it okay for people who have no idea what it even begins to entail, say they have anxiety.

The most important part that I've learned over the many struggles I've had is that anxiety, fear, overthinking, and panic do not define me, do not make me who I am, and they are not an excuse. They are a battle that I am fighting and I will overcome. To everyone else fighting, I wish I could just hug you all because it takes a toll on you but it doesn't define you and you are bigger than the bad and you're better than the thoughts and the feelings. You are strong and you were made to win the fight.

This is the last time I will ever give my four battles the time of day.

1 Peter 1:7