I could feel it crawling behind my eyes, going down my spine, into my lungs, stomach…

Everywhere it could get to

It made my stomach turn inside out and back.** **My intestines tied into a balloon animal, a second of relief, then into another. My lungs being squeezed by the hands of it, making it just about impossible to breathe. A pounding in my head and ears like there a drum playing in my brain and right in my ear canals. My vision going blurry by the tears that would form in my eyes.

The pain it caused me was unbearable, and it showed up at the lowest times I could think of. My faltering grade in Algebra last year, that text argument, seeing her text me again when I thought I was free, the stress of just asking someone a question or even turning in an excuse for school.

The parasite of stress and anxiety was always there, sucking up whatever chance of acting “normal” I had. Whatever chance of feeling normal that I could’ve had, gone the second I feel the pound of my heart and the shake of my hands.

Standing there, looking in the mirror that wasn’t hung up yet, the one I had to bend down to see my face in. I felt sick, seeing myself in such a crippled mental state over the most basic things imaginable, the stupidest things to be scared of, things that anyone else to do.

I want this parasite to be gone. I want to be able to handle situations like everyone else seems to. I want to go back to the time where I was almost emotionless when I was alone.

I don’t want to feel anymore.

I don’t want to feel like I’m failing everyone around me by not doing what I’m supposed to. I don’t want to feel like a nuisance for my personality. I don’t want to feel like the victim when I was a pain in the neck myself. I don’t want to feel the stress and anxiety that parasite bathes in.

I didn’t want to be hated by someone I trusted when I was merely being myself. I didn’t want to be the one in the friend group that couldn’t think before they spoke. I didn’t want to be the girl that couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying when he wasn’t even explaining it well. I didn’t want to be the burden that hides in her room all day, hides from the world around her, hides from her own self doubt,

but I am…

I am and I hate it

I’m the one that had her best friend hate her behind her back. I’m the one that got called an ungrateful teenager. I’m the one that says the same phrases over and over and over again until it drives everyone around me insane. I’m the one that procrastinates everything and lets the parasite multiply it by 20. I’m the one that doesn’t even try to change.

I’m the one that keeps myself this way,

I’m the reason I’m like this,

Why can’t I just change…?

Why can’t I keep my self-promises to change? Why can’t I act normal around people? Why can’t I just be better?

That’s my horror, the mental parasite that makes me the way I am, that keeps my dignity hostage, that leaves me a cowering mess.

I want it gone…

Please……

Take it away from me…