Dear Anxiety,
Fuck you.
The amount of nights I have stayed awake because of the encounter we had that day. Once you were a in the background, never really there. But now we are always together. There is not a moment I can get away from you. Always there, ten steps ahead never a million behind. I can still remember the time you planned a sneak attack. I couldn’t breathe with tears streaming down my face, you were watching me with a grin from ear to ear smeared across your face.
As a kid life was easier, you were still there just in the very back. Never present until now. When did you decide to pop up out of the shadows? Like a distant cousin coming over to say for a week but extending your stay, for way to long. What’s your master plan here? To make me so scared to social interactions I sometimes can’t leave my house? To make me feel useless, like my own friends and the people who love me will leave, without an explanation? To make me scared of constantly being wrong I never speak my truth? To make me self conscious of myself I try to have no attention drawn to myself? If those were your plan you have already mastered them. In order to leave my house I have to have a pep talk with my self, downing your words out. I am in need of constant reassurance from my friends and loved ones to make sure they don’t plan on leaving. I struggle with any small talk or class participation with the fear of stumbling over my words or being wrong. But when I do those thing I can’t stop thinking about what I should have said in those situations for hours, days and even months. Everyday I am constantly thinking people are staring at me, making rude comments about me, because of you. You always know how to get under my skin.
You have completely taken over my life and I would like you to leave. I want to be free, to be comfortable with just me. Not having to worry about pleasing you. I need this darkness to lift and to see light again, to feel the warm sun on my face and soul. I need you to leave because you have been nothing but a bad house guest.
Yours truly,
Camdyn
Dear CAMDYN,
This is a very beautiful piece and I’m extremely proud of you for posting this. I believe that this piece really speaks to most people, especially teenagers, and the fact that this is true to you makes it even more true to the others. I really like the line: “always there, ten steps ahead never a million behind.” This is genuinely such a cool sentence and I love the way it’s worded. I also really related to: “I am in need of constant reassurance from my friends and loved ones to make sure they don’t plan on leaving.” I could find myself within this sentence as well as with the entire piece. I’m proud of youuu.
For improvement, spelling and GUMPS. I already told you in person but another thing I noticed is: “to make me so scared to social interactions I sometimes can’t leave my house.” I think you know the minor mistake here and will fix it. So yay.
I like your work. A lot. Good job!
Sincerely,
Tina
Dear Camdyn,
I absolutely loved this piece! It is so relatable! I can definitely agree that anxiety can often drive one crazy. This piece was so well crafted and you sentences flowed amazingly. The lines that struck out to me the most were:
Once you were a in the background, never really there. But now we are always together. There is not a moment I can get away from you. Always there, ten steps ahead never a million behind.
This piece was interesting in a way that you wrote a letter to anxiety. That is very creative and a very effective way of getting your point across of how anxiety has bothered you. Making anxiety the subject of your letter makes this piece stand out because you set anxiety as a character that you are talking to. Even in real life, you can’t really describe the emotion and effect of first hand conversations because you are not able to depict the same message by describing; showing is better than telling.
There is not much to improve as this piece was written to pure excellence, but you can definitely go back and check for GUMPS such as the spelling mistake I caught in the beginning of the third line of the second paragraph, “say” instead of, “stay”.
Overall, very well done! I am so glad I opened up your blog to read this piece. After your spoken word, I made a mental note to definitely check out your blog because your spoken word was so amazing!
Love,
Faryal
Faryal,
I am so happy you liked my piece, and the point was very clearly percieved. Ahh, GUMPS my worst nightmare. I will go back and double check through this piece as it can get confusing fast. Thank you again, and don’t be a stranger here. 🙂
Much love, Cammie <3