Together, Happily

When it all began I was normal and happy. I was a child, curious and troublesome, ready to take on the world and whatever it had for me. As a little tike I had a swarm of all my little friends...but one stood out in particular.
He was once a friend to me. His gentle calls and watchful care keeping me just out of harm’s way. He made me think twice before crossing a road without carefully scouting for any cars racing down the pavement. He kept me hidden behind my mother in apprehension when friends of hers, strangers to me, were eager to meet me. He was there, holding my hand and carefully, cautiously leading me through each day.

He saved me and kept me from threats of all kinds. Many small like making the mistake of forgetting to bring my favorite toy wherever I went and wailing the rest of the day from the separation. But also many huge and life-threatening (or so I thought at the time). He saved me from the dangers of the dark by the nightlight my mother purchased. Without it I most certainly would have perished at the monsters’ hands. He saved me from pain by the fear of repeating that fall to the pavement. As well as the haunting possibility of accidentally stepping foot on a crack in the pavement and breaking my dear mother’s back by one little misstep. I was saved from the unknown and unheard of by my companion reminding me of all the evil it could hold.

His name? Anxiety. My anxiety saved me in my beginning, in days of silly fears and caution. But I trusted him with all I had in my first years.

At A Distance
Soon I grew from where I had been and my anxiety became something of less interest to me. We weren’t as close as we once had been. I began to realize how petty my fears were. I broke free from fears of the darkness that awaited me at my bedside. I rid myself of the nightlight I once had, there was no need for it anymore. No monsters lived in the darkness awaiting me to close my eyes. I learned and matured from where I had been.
As I grew taller and more independent by the day, my anxiety resented it. I knew too well what was worth worrying about and what wasn’t.  He struggled to keep me with his gentle, soft warnings of what could become of me. His once known voice came now only as small pleas. None of his attempts were successful, my confidence and logic was too strong for him to wrestle against.

Jealousy within my childhood friend, my childhood fear, only grew. His effort to pull me back into his grasp strengthened. He wished me back into his care by any means necessary, but didn’t know how much it would hurt me.

In His Grasp

He brewed his plan for years and years, waiting for his time to strike. He waited until my family almost doubled in a matter of months. A brother and two cousins introduced all at once. He waited until the precise moment when I was weak and my thoughts began to betray me. 

Now these fears again haunt me, and more. Fears of slithering beings with devilish eyes, of being drowned in a sea of people. I fear of speaking my own mind and of what may be thought of me if I did. I fear, more than I ever had and of more childish things than darkness.

My anxiety succeeded. He had pulled me back into him. But no longer are his calls gentle or his eyes watchful. His grasp on me is iron tight, one fist around my throat the other holding my body in place. His eyes glaring into me, my attention drawn to only him. He murmurs my worries and fears to me and cycles them through my brain until I am enslaved by his wants. His words a toxic poison that takes control of my body. The flashing red button inside of me carefully labeled ‘panic’ goes off and my anxiety wins. He wins.

My anxiety wins each and every day, holds me captive, waiting for another moment to use his power against myself. I fight against him with all my will but it does no good, he is too strong for me to hold off on my own.
Once my ally, my companion, my friend, now has betrayed me against myself.

Okay

He was once a friend to me. But now, things have changed. Instead I am his prisoner, his pet, his slave. Anxiety has taken over me. His weight overpowers my will, extinguishes my fighting spirit.

Once my anxiety took over my being I knew I couldn’t keep it to myself. I admitted what was happening to one, another, a couple more..but that didn’t help. My family worried, my friends clueless, I wasn’t sure how to carry on.

Stories should end with the ‘happily ever after’. My story is not that, it’s not over and it isn’t happy, not yet. What’s important is I’m okay and healing grudgingly slowly. Each morning I feed myself the little blue pills prescribed to me in an attempt to loosen his hold, it works in some moments. But I still suffer everyday.

My friend who once helped me through my silly childhood woes, whom I trusted, I hate him. His motives are evil. What he was is gone. As a child I feared but had him by my side. Now I still fear, I fear him: my anxiety.