If Anxiety Was A Person, It Would Be Your Toxic Best Friend

If anxiety was a person, it would be your toxic best friend, always negative, always passing judgement on your thoughts, your looks, your actions. She makes you question your passions, until you’re not even sure you have any. And she never leaves you alone. She is always texting, always calling just to remind you, to threaten “Don’t forget about me, not even for a second.” And you can’t, although sometimes you wish you could. When you go out, anxiety has a habit of showing up uninvited. She crowds the room everywhere she goes, stealing all the air so that you can’t breathe. She hates when you succeed. She whisks the attention away from you because she has to, because “you wouldn’t want it anyway.” Anxiety looks at your other friends with jealousy. “Are you sure they’re your friends?” she says condescendingly. “You know they’re just being nice, right? You know they don’t actually like you.” Anxiety has a way of keeping you up at night. Her words race through your mind at 1 a.m., reminding you of all the things that went wrong that day, reminding you of all the things that could go wrong tomorrow. Anxiety says “You should probably just stay home.” So you do. Anxiety knows everything about you, meaning she knows exactly how to twist your mind into knots. Anxiety knows your strengths, but she only ever talks about your weaknesses. So you try your hardest to be perfect, but you’re exhausted. You say “Just let me be happy.” Anxiety says “Misery loves company.” You want to tell her to leave, that she is wrong, wrong about everything. But… what if she’s not? She is your best friend, after all, always by your side. But just like a toxic best friend, anxiety lies.