If I could write a letter to my anxiety…

Dear Anxiety,

You have been living with me longer than I can remember. Every irrational fear growing up, every thought that was so far from reality.

You were the friend that I never wanted but wouldn’t leave, I thought as I grew up we would separate but that didn’t happen. We continued to grow together and you were always there when I needed you the least, you were there to ruin my life.

But I won’t ever let you.

You keep me up all night tossing and turning, waking me up early to make sure you can bother me for longer. You wake me up at ridiculous times throughout the night creating scenarios in my head over and over again that will never come true.

You’ve ruined relationships.

You’re forever telling me to hate myself, whilst telling me that everyone else does to.

You’ve never stopped telling me that people are going to leave, but when is it going to happen?

You’re forever lying to me trying to convince me that it is the truth.

You create scenarios in my head when simple texts, emails or messages that haven’t been replied to, or making me question if I have said the right thing.

You convince me to apologise when in reality no one cares and no harm was caused, but you still try to let it affect me.

You leave me so paranoid that your voice isn’t going to leave and your constant black cloud turns all of my positives into negatives.

You are the one beside me as I wait for an exam, exam results, a job interview or any other day to day situation. You leave me sitting with shaking hands, legs like jelly and shivers all over.

I leave myself second guessing everything as you leave a presence of wrong doing or ‘what if’ in the back of the head that leaves me in a blank space.

You’ve made me my own worst enemy! Perfectionism brings me to tears as I’ve always been good enough for other people, but you’re the voice in the back of my head that tells me I’m not wanted or I’m not good enough.

You leave me flawing my own strengths, I’m constantly overanalysing or overthinking situations because I care too much. Its a lot easier to tell someone to stop over thinking than it is to stop overthinking.

You’ve made me think that caring too much is a bad thing when in fact it’s a strength. You constantly fill my head with unrealistic situations which you lead me to believe are true.

You leave me living in a world of my own, I wake up tired with no control of the off button. It is emotionally draining.

I love my sleep, but getting there is almost impossible as you constantly stop me from getting to that point, as that’s the only place that you aren’t with me. There is no escape from you, I exercise to try and run away from you but you’re constantly following me.

The amount you cause me to think isn’t something that I can talk to other people about, no one understands, if they thought half as much as I think they’d think that it was unhealthy.

I would love to have a relationship where I’m not constantly questioning what I am doing, or everything you say. It would be nice not to have someone telling me that things are going to be ok 24/7 and in fact believe that everything is going to be ok.

Its when you visit me for long periods of times that hits me hard as you leave my heart racing at 100mph, but only I’m the only one that can feel it. You leave me sweating with nerves and fear all over my body where I can’t control my breathing. Trying to explain to people why I am panicking is impossible, I don’t understand myself.

I hate you and my life would be so much easier without you, however there are some lessons that you have taught me.

You’ve taught me not to listen to you, you’ve taught me that these scenarios in my head aren’t real life. You’ve taught me that just because things haven’t worked out how my head has told me so that they aren’t real. You’ve also taught me to trust myself and that you will never take over my life.

See you on the otherside