I am afraid to go outside.
Not because there are monsters out there, but because of the monsters in my head.
I feel like I am trapped in a box with an animal I can't see, but I can hear it panting, and I am just waiting for it to swallow me whole because there is nowhere to run.
People tell me to fight; that things will get easier. But it is so hard to fight when you don't want to fight, so you fight for the sake of someone else and secretly wish that you would just drop dead so you don't have to fight anymore.
I am not afraid of dying. It seems like the nothingness would be relief to being constantly on edge. No, I am not afraid of dying.
I am afraid of living.
I am afraid to get in my car or drive to the grocery store or to pay the cashier for my groceries, even though she has greeted me with a smile and asked me how my day is going. I am afraid of saying the wrong thing, and I am afraid of losing control.
I feel like I am drowning, but my day is going fine, thank you.
Some days, my anxiety is the size of a ladybug and I can flick it from my arm without a second thought, but most days it is a prowling lion, and the only thing I can do to keep myself safe is hide under the blankets and pray that it goes away without pouncing on me first.
I am sick. I am so sick, and it's not something you can see. The worst part of being this sick is that I don't always want to get better. I actually want to keep myself locked in my house because it keeps the monsters at bay, and it means that I won't have to face them.
So I stay locked in my house with the blinds pulled shut even when depression and anxiety knock on the door and let themselves in as uninvited house guests and decide to stay for a few months. They proceed to sit on my chest with the weight of a baby elephant so that breathing feels like trying to push myself through a brick wall, and I wonder why my body would have a self-destruct sequence that I have absolutely no control over.
