Anxiety feels different to everyone. For some people, it’s like bugs crawling under their skin, burrowing deep inside them. For others, it’s the feeling of dread seeping into every corner of their body. For me, anxiety takes the form of a person. A person with undistinguishable features and a gaping mouth, whispering in my ear, jumping into my body, making me cold and hyper-aware and overwhelmed all at the same time.

Think of your worst insecurities, your least favourite memories, and your biggest fears all wrapped into one floating, uncontrollable being. This being cannot be restrained, muted, or killed. It just exists, an ever living part of you that you hate with every single cell of your body.

Other people hate it, too. 

They hate your shaking leg during exams, bumping the table, interrupting the deafening silence no matter how much you try to make it stop. 

They hate your loud breathing when the being opens up that hole in your chest, and you’re desperately trying to close it, to survive, to breathe, to get rid of this horrible, consuming emptiness.

They hate the way you have to check, double check, and triple check if the doors are locked. Check, double check, triple check. Check, double check, triple check.

They hate the way you need to prove yourself right in every argument because the being keeps insisting that you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re always wrong. 

They hate the way you bite your nails. “Don’t do that, it’s disgusting,” they cry. “Weren’t you trying to grow them out?” Yes, yes I was.

They hate the being almost as much as you do. But yet. What would life be like without this ever present, haunting form of a person? You can’t imagine. It’s the puppeteer, and you’re the puppet.

It controls you.