My breath denses as my pupils follow the small trace of my body in the dirty, foggy mirror. The person staring back at me felt so close but yet so--so far. Muscles in my arm tensed as I retrieved it from the side of my body, bringing it up to the sad bags under my eyes. I reached for the concealer on the counter, applying the creamy and almost white makeup onto my undereyes. My once darkened and languid sockets had disappeared, and my evenly distributed, sad face was now almost presentable. Bubbling with air, my chest seemed to tighten and my breath fastened as it shortened. While I imagined that eventually I would get used to this feeling for it was so consistent, I couldn't hope for a day so great, for I would become disappointed and impatient as the day might cease to come.

As I remembered one last thing, I met my shallow blue eyes back up to the person standing in front of me. I looked at her soft, thin lips, and in that moment the ends of her lips paralleled at the tips of her cheeks. In attempt to look less lifeless by smiling, I reached for the cold, grim door handle and turned it so soundly, for my parents wouldn't hear me leave. On my way out, I turned off the rusted and worn light switch behind me, and fled to school--or in other words, a place I´d like to call, hell.

Are you ever curious as to why your brain thinks a certain way? Or if you're the only one that is like that? Well, I can guarantee you-- you are not the only one.

On a long Monday morning, I’d gotten into my car after waking up extremely late and throwing my clothes on so fast, I hadn’t even checked to make sure I had matched. A voice inside my head had seemed to be continuously rushing me to “hurry up,” and to “make sure you don’t mess anything else up,” but obviously-- it doesn't seem to listen, but only makes things a thousand times worse. Sitting in the long, seemingly never ending line of cars stringing ahead of me, I turned the volume up on my car stereo up until it said max volume, just to see if it would drown out my thoughts. I'm not exactly sure why I did this; I should know that it never works. Cars ahead started to inch forward-- the slower they went, the more anxious I became, my skin now burning with the slight sensation of pins and needles. Now being 7:25am while remembering school starts at 7:30, the light above my head flashes a bright color green and I push the gas pedal softly, only because I had other cars in front of me. Pulling into the parking lot, it was now 7:30am, and my day had officially started off no-good-very-bad.

I had always hated being late, or not twenty minutes earlier than I should be to events. People can always tell me however many times they want that, “it’s not that big of a deal,” and honestly, I agree with them, but for me to convince my brain that it's not that big of a deal will probably take more time then I had in that day.

I flipped open the foggy top mirror in my car, and the dim white light flashed as it turned on. My white, freckled skin was smooth and always moved so gently with motion. My light blue eyes, dark in the shadows, gleamed as the warm sunlight shined through it at the perfect angle. Following the dark purple sockets of my eyes, soon came along some small, some big, orange colored speckles that appeared in the summer. The dark blonde roots of hair flowed out of my skull smoothly, and reaching towards the dead ends of my hair became a lighter tone from the effects of chemical wrenched hair dye. Seeping deep through the chest, a heart thumps viciously at every thought that blurts in my mind, seeming like a never-ending rhythm. The soft touch in my fingers glaze over the shortenly-bitten nail beds and acknowledge the chewed off missing skin around my fingers, probably in effect of a test that I had panicked about earlier that week.

Imagine walking down the stairs in the dark, and you miss a step-- your heart suddenly feels like it skips a beat. Your breath feels as if it were knocked out of your chest, and your blood seems to be flowing at a hundred miles per hour. That is what anxiety feels like; powerful and compelling, some days I feel like it could almost swallow me whole. Carrying it with me wherever I go, some days heavy, other days light, but still seemingly never-ending. One thing that gets me through this is are the days where I feel like the load of anxiety is crushing me, falling asleep listening to music while trying to free my mind-- I wake up in the morning, and I will always feel better than you did the night before. The accomplishment of getting through what I never thought would end-- that is what keeps me going. Prove your demons wrong and set them on fire, show them that they do not own you, they do not control you, and they are not you.

Though I have this heavy weight, it does not define me, for I am so much more. I'm strong and smile when I feel weak, I love even though I am afraid, and I am consistent though all I have known was inconsistency. I am more.