A girl called Anxiety
There is a girl walking beside me. Always. Her name is Anxiety.
She’s been with me for a long time, for as long as I can remember. She’s always been following me like a shadow. If I walk, she walks. If I stop, she stops. If I cry, she laughs.
Because she’s not nice. She’s evil. She’s telling me things that hurt me, like:
“Who do you think you are?
Do you think you matter?
”You’re nothing, you know.
You’re nothing! ”
And she’s doing the same things as I’m doing, only she does it better than me. I try to talk to someone, but my tongue gets numb and I mumble. And then she says the same things that I was trying to say, only she says it perfectly. And then she laughs – again.
I can see her in the mirror. I see me and I am thinking:
“Why did God create me like this?
Doesn’t He have mercy for me?
Doesn’t He love me?
Is he punishing me?“
And I see Anxiety, and she is so pretty, so perfect. She got my eyes, only they’re sparkling. She got my hair, only it’s shining. She even got my face and my body,
only it is perfect. And I am not.
I envy her. I want to break the mirror so I don’t have to see her. So I don’t have to see this perfect girl standing next to me laughing. Telling me how hopeless I look.
Telling me how disgusting I am. Why can’t she shut up? Why can’t she leave me alone? I asked her that once, and she said:
“I’m here to remind you how hopeless you are.
It is for your own good, you know.
Have to stay here,
have to keep telling you that”.
She’s also with me at night. She goes into my walls and stays there like a shadow. All night she’s whispering, reaching out her perfect arms to touch me. She’s even in my dreams, but she’s not the perfect looking girl in my dreams, she is more like a devil. A little devil, dancing around me. Jumping up and down, together with her little devil friends, screaming with her devil voice, trying to touch me with her little devil hands. And I wake up, soaking wet, only to see that she is still there, in my wall.
Laughing. Loud. Whispering. Trying to touch me.
She’s at her worst when we are outside walking. Before we go out, she says:
“How can you do this to people? Showing them your ugly face, talking with your disgusting voice. Speaking words to them that they do not want to listen to?”
And when we are outside, she´s whispering:
“Look, they are looking at you! They get sick by looking at you! They want to throw up! They want me to cover your face so that they don’t have to see you!“.
I say:
“Go away. Please… It is not true, they are not looking at me!”.
“Oh, yes they are. Always. How can they not? How can they keep their eyes
to themselves when you’re walking by them? “
And then she laughs again. Loud. Long.
But I am thinking that maybe… What if she’s wrong…? Whoever said she has the answers to everything? Maybe I’m not that bad after all…? She lives through me, right? If I tell her to go then…
“Anxiety, go away!”
“No“
“Fine! Stay! You stay, I don’t care! You just keep talking, keep laughing! I’ll just put my fingers in my ears, and say ’La la la la la la la!!! I’m not listening! Still here? Still talking?
Can’t hear you! La la la la la la la!”
And then – I’ll be the one laughing!
