You know in life when everything you do comes collapsing down? That bully in your brain that lies and plots against you. Those moments where you lock yourself in a small space hoping the reality will help you breathe. The 30 minute cycles of floods and rainforests. Will we ever get revenge on anxiety? Can we ever climb the mountain up to the rainbow? Will we ever be able to survive through the dust? I ask myself as I climb.

I am fifth teen years old and I struggle with social anxiety. I see the looks I get walking through these sub urban streets. The glares and laughs whistling to my ear. Something I have come to reconcile, are they real? You know when you step on to an elevator that is crowed one to many? You feel yourself sinking smaller and smaller until you are smaller than the world. I hear voices in my brain everyday. They scare me out of my soul. In a result they leave me shaking on the garage floor while the world walks away. I am not really sure where my anxiety comes from to tell you the truth. I have researched and researched looking for a shortcut. I want this mountain of life to be over. I keep climbing up the same old bark mountain to see what is ahead. Most days I just see fog. But not today, today I see something I never have before. I waited and waited for this day. I wished for a rainbow to appear telling me it would all sort itself out. I was not mentally ready for what I saw. Over the crystal river, and hollow woods I saw the dark shadows of my future.

                                                  I call it the revenge maze.
And that is when I crawled back in to my man made hole like a gopher and went back to sleep.

I almost cried the flood I have been holding in. The volcano in me almost erupted from all the anger hidden beneath me, the volcano of negativity my anxiety brings.I want people to like me so bad. If I mess up I stress about it for days on end. The only person who gets me is my journal. I can write for hours on end. It is the only way I can get out my true self. People may think life is a crystal platter for me by looking at me. But, I can tell you it a’int been no service. I stare at random people on the streets trying to find out their life stories.  My panic attacks range 30 minutes more than the average. Why me? I can not deal with all this I am just a kid! I feel that everything happens for a reason. Every fall is hiding a message. I just want to find out my reason. Without one, How do I really know who I am? Anxiety has been a factor in my life for 11 years. I want to hide anxiety from my life, but I keep wondering are the factors I like most about myself in my anxiety. I love to write. I write everyday every hour. Whenever I get anxious I will write lyrics to songs, poems, and stories, sometimes these range up and down my arms.Would this all go away if I had a solution for anxiety? I sit and struggle myself through the pain. I feel when I cry people just watch it flood. Deep down I know they are just trying to help me. But, what I feel right then is them letting me drown in my own tears. I want to make a change. I do not like myself very much when I have anxiety. I turn into a self absorbed little girl. The world is changing and I am changing with it. How can I control my anger? It seems everything I do and think these days revolves around anxiety like the rings revolve around Saturn. I just want to win this battle for once in my life. Why can I never seem to cease my stress? My life has had a magic turn around on me. The journey is long. I just have to find a way to survive.

Diving into mental floods, here we go. Sometimes I feel I expect too much.  Why are we built the way we are? I feel there is an even balance between emotions. Even though they sometimes seem like they are the exact same. How do we know when we are sad/ mad/happy/excited/in love? How do we break down all these hormones into categories? Are we really so wound up, that even the most classic emotions are hard to categorize? When we get fit to the tide, we let others people’s emotions ride us down. I wonder about us as people. How are we so different? Why do we have crazy uncontrollable feelings? I think people are very similar to colors. There are different colors of green:Lime,mint,dark,light,puke. Blues: teal, turquoise, baby, dark. In life we will find those who are similar to us. But, you will never find someone who is the exact same. You may look the same, you may talk the same, but you will never be the same. We try so hard to be that stand out pink. We try so hard to be that neutral grey. We try so hard to snap out of being the annoying yellow. Some of us are nature green. Others stand by orange. I see myself to be beige. I am misunderstood, everyones least favorite, but I still am a color. I will still be here no matter anyones opinion. Even if I am just a body, watching couples, and friends enjoy the dance. Even if I am on the sidelines. The designated driver, I am still a being. I want to have fun, I want to enjoy an non anxiety living life. I just do not know how to accomplish this. I watch real people enjoy their hectic lives on television. The cooking shows, singing shows, dancing to the best. I just wonder. How am I so unique? Why do I exist? What is the point to me? I shake everyday in paranoia just to find out it is just my nagging brain. I get upset and greedy wanting more, now I have to ask my self everyday. What more could I ever ask for? I look at myself in the mirror and say to myself. Who are you? Is your anxiety defining you? Is this what you want? Is it controlling your life? Are you letting it win? I keep wishing for my anxiety to go away. The truth is wishes do not come true unless you work with them. You have to keep a hardworking effort. Anxiety is always trying to pull you down. Anxiety is a big, fat symbol for a bully. It tells you that you are worthless. You get so tired of hearing these words over and over again that you start to say these things to other people even when it is not their fault. Anxiety will lie to you. It will blame your best friends and family for your mistakes. It is so wrong! Anxiety will tell you to cut someone out of your life which sucks. The key is to fight it to the best of your abilities.
“It is just my anxiety talking. I have social anxiety thats all. You can’t let it control your life. Think about the consequences. Think this before you act. Will I regret this?’’

I really want to learn ways to control my anxiety. The one problem right now is that I get anxious talking to people about my anxiety. I am a very deep thinker. I know what I feel, but then whenever I try to talk to anyone I get so anxious.

How will this effect my image?
What will they think of me?
Will they hate me?
“I need people to like me.”
“I need a good reputation.’’
I have social anxiety, I need alone time. If it is to cry or relax I need to be alone. If I say something stupid I can obsess about it for weeks. If I am concerned about how a person likes me I just want to lock myself in my room and cry.

“I understand how you are feeling.’’
‘’You will get through this.”
“ You are not weak.”
“Anxiety will not change how I see you.”

These are the words every human that struggles with anxiety is dying to hear. We just want to know that you will love us even though we struggle. We want you to see that we are trying. The very worst thing you can tell me when I am having anxiety is

“It’s going to be okay.’’

How? How will it ever be okay? I can not tell if it will all get better under the light of anxiety attacks. It is so hard being a teenager. Constant appearances, reputations, outlooks. People never understand why I care so much about how people will see me. The truth is they are all the information about me. When I die it does not matter anything that I did right, if I do a bad deed and that out rules everything else in the world that will define me. I look at people wondering about their story themselves as well to me. Why are they here. What is their purpose. How do we know where we fit in. How do we all just sit and wonder. How many minds does it take until enough is enough? How many anxiety videos will I have to make to get my point across? How will I ever know who I truly am? Will I ever be able to know? Before anxiety started to really control my life I could of sworn I wanted to be a fiction writer. I would always spring up in the middle of the night with these creative ideas for a story. But now, now that anxiety invaded that is all I seem to be able to talk about. Who would I have been without anxiety? What kind of person would I be? Would I be super outgoing, fearless? Would I be the smartest human in the world? Anxiety has been such a big factor in my life if I pulled that factor away what else would be left? I cry floods and bleed out volcanos of anger. I spin tornados of tornados until I totally blow up and explode.

Sometimes life throws you towards the curb. The main objective now is to not get run over by a truck.  You just need to get out of the road. You have full control of the car. The car in this situation is taking place of your life. You can turn the wheel anyway you want, just know if you turn the wrong way there will be consequences to mistakes you did not know even took place on this windy road of adventure, us human call life.