The Antsy Butterfly

An Anxious Mother Fluttering Through Life

  • Home
  • Mental Health
  • Parenting
  • Family & Marriage
  • About
  • Contact
An Anxious Mother Fluttering Through Life

Dear Anxiety: It’s Time for You to Go

June 29, 2017 by theantsybutterflyadmin

Hey, you!

Yeah, you — I’m talking to you. You’ve interfered with my life for long enough. It’s time for you to sit down and listen to what I have to say:

Anxiety, you have got to go. You have overstayed your welcome, that is, as if you were ever welcomed in the first place. You’ve held me down. You’ve got too involved. You’ve hurt my relationships and friendships time and time again, and you are now getting too involved with my relationship with my son. You have got to go.

Years ago, when we first met, I was around 15 and I thought you were a product of my teenage hormones. Together with your good friend depression, you’ve toppled right over me and led me on this ridiculous roller coaster of emotions and mental illness for the past 20-plus years. You started out slow and then totally took over. You’ve grabbed the steering wheel to my life and I want it back for good.

Sure, you come and go, but the problem for me is how you always come back. I do not want you to come back. You make me feel physically ill. You choke me. You suffocate me. You overthrow me. I sometimes feel weak against your strength to have that much control over my mind. When you get help from your buddy depression and you both hit me at once, I feel like I’m drowning, like I’m done for.

You make me feel like a failure, like I’ll never amount to anything. I started writing to help me deal, but then you come along and make me worry about how much I am writing. You heighten when I haven’t submitted a piece, or when a piece I wrote has been rejected. You make me doubt myself and my abilities. You increase your hold on me when I have to go to work that day and don’t have time to write. How is that fair? I literally cannot write from work.

You quicken my heartbeat, and not in a good way. I’m convinced you are the reason for my stomach pains. I’m worried about developing an ulcer because of you. I take a pill every morning now, again because of you. Do you not care?

Obviously not. Now that you’ve become over-involved in my life with my child, I am starting to get a bit angry. I worry about what behaviors I’m displaying, which you are responsible for might I add. I worry about how you and good ol’ depression will affect my relationship with my son. He sees me crying. He feeds off my aura. He has started noticing when mommy isn’t feeling good and I don’t like it. I get impatient with him quickly in order to calm you, but it only ever makes things worse.

So please, anxiety — and by association depression — get out of my mind. Get out of my life. Leave me alone.

Sincerely,

Karen

 

 

Post originally appeared on The Mighty

 

To read my second Letter to My Anxiety, visit: A Second Letter to My Anxiety

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedin

Comments

comments

Posted in: Mental Health Tagged: anxiety, Depression, Mental Health

Recent Posts

  • Echoes of Childhood: Remembering the Little Quotes of Our Little Folks
  • In A World Looking For Rainbows, I Flock To The Dirty Truths
  • Why We Don’t Need Sophie the Giraffe Or Any Other High Priced Items
  • I Take My Medication Like It’s My Job Because It Is My Job
  • Dear Hormones – A Disgruntled Middle-Aged Woman’s Plea to You

Archives

  • December 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016

Follow Us

Facebooktwitter
TODAY.com Parenting Team Parenting Contributor

Sharing

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedin

Copyright © 2021 The Antsy Butterfly.

Lifestyle WordPress Theme by themehit.com