An Open Letter to My Anxiety.

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Dear Anxiety,

I can’t believe I’m even talking to you again.

I thought I had figured you out. I worked through your lies and I’ve felt great for a while.

Life is so much better without you in it. I’m more content, I take more risks and I’m so much more in the moment.

I learned how to talk back to you and not allow you to get the best of me.

I thought this was over.

Yet, here we are again, meeting face to face and somehow I feel like you’ve taken the power back.

Somehow you seem scarier and bigger than you did.

You sneak up mostly at night, when I’m laying in the dark and have no way to avoid you.

That’s when you like to get to me the most.

You bring your trusty side kick, Insomnia, along with you and the two of you have a hay day together in my head.

I will be ok most of the day, I will be exhausted and looking forward to going to sleep.

But the second my head hits that pillow, there you go. Like a hampster wheel in my head that won’t stop spinning.

Suddenly, I’m feeling paralyzed by the fear of the “what if’s” and the doubts.

I think something terrible is going to happen to my husband, or that my son is going to get deathly ill, or that I’m going crazy or a million other terrifying things.

The visualizations you put in my head are horrible.

You’ve made me hate sleep. You’ve made me dread the dark.

You’ve wasted so much of my time worrying about things that make no sense to worry about.

I really, really despise you for that.

Here is the thing though, anxiety. I have beat you over and over again and I will continue to do so.

I will not quit fighting you.

Even in the dead of night. If I have to fight you for the rest of my life, fine.

But you won’t win.

I won’t keep you a secret, either.

I know that’s what you want. You love living alone in the dark of my heart and hope I keep you quite.

Because we both know the second I start talking about you, you get less powerful.

I can feel the power leaving you even as I write this.

I’m also going to use you to my benefit.

I’m going to remember that by fighting you, I’m the one getting stronger, not you.

If there is anything you’ve taught me, it’s that I have courage inside of me.

I’m brave and I overcome.

So go ahead and keep trying your same old tactics.

I will keep using the tools and coping techniques I know that work. I’ve done this before and will do it again.

My faith is stronger than you are and my God will shine His light into your darkness.

He loves to reveal the truth to me about who you are- a liar.

You do not rule me. You are only a small part of me... one that isn’t even a part of my soul but just lingering in my brain.

And I will continue to grab on to the part of me that is so much bigger and that WINS- my hope.

From,

The girl you shouldn’t have messed with

~Kelli Bachara, The Unraveling Blog