A Young Black Mind: Anxiety, My Best Friend

Last time I talked about how I stood out from everyone else. Yes, I am proud of the way I am! My name is Dalesia and I do not want to be like anyone else. But sometimes, I think otherwise. She tells me every day: “It’s time to fit in with everyone! Stop being weird, Dalesia. They are talking about you.” She doesn’t really like me talking about her all the time, unless I’m talking about her in my head, or talking to her, you could say. Meet Anxiety. She is my best friend.

Well, she’s not really my best friend. She mostly picks on me whenever she wants to.

Most of the time when I walk places, I see the way other teenagers look at me. And the more they stare, the more she won’t stop talking. She never stops putting things in my head. She likes to talk about how they could be whispering about the way my hair is and that it has to be a wig or not real. Or she likes to explain how I would never fit in with them and it makes me rock, shake a lot, and clench my hands when I talk or walk. If I look someone in their eyes, she never fails to try to go inside their head and take their thoughts about me out of their brain. Which is why I never look at you. I’m sorry.

I promise I’m fine…

She never owns up to the pain she caused me. I don’t blame her because I put her out of control sometimes and she feels hurt. She won’t stop there though. She will keep trying to bring me down and bring on flashbacks. Some are good, but some are bad. It broke me down. She is someone who always shadows me. Like the time when a bully tried to talk to me, my anxiety never fails to plug her aux cord into the recorder and put it in my head and repeat everything that they ever said to me.

“Nobody wants you here.” “You’re ugly.” “You don’t fit in.” “You are too big.”

I promise I’m fine…

The worst place where she is mostly attacking me… school. When the students look at me, she likes traveling towards the person and getting in their thoughts. Leaning on their shoulder like they can see her, and she starts to babble.

“How do you feel about Dalesia? Is she cute to you? She is annoying, huh?” Which makes me clench my hands even more. It makes me nervous to the point where I scuttle away from my crush, or my friend. No, it wasn’t you. I’m sorry for leaving. It was just anxiety.

I promise I’m fine…

Can I still be beautiful even though I’m anxious? With a falling crown and wings that tremble so much that it’s complicated for me to fly.

I go back in time when we first met each other. I was a 5th grader and I used to always be scolded because I never read books. Till this day, sometimes I can still hear her voice when I feel pressured with my work: “YOU HAD THREE MONTHS, DALESIA!” Still kinda haunts me and comes out of nowhere. And I know exactly who is behind all of this. Which is mostly why I stick to myself and try and get all the work done without being called on so she wouldn’t be summoned. But I met anxiety in 5th grade when I was being scolded. I felt this cold touch on my shoulder and a whisper in my ear saying…

“You won’t make it.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I was just standing there near crying because I was being scolded. Because I wanted to make my teacher proud. Ever since then, she just popped out whenever she wanted to. But that is why I should just let all of this happen.

No matter how much I wish things were different.

At the end of the day, she is the only one who has been here for a long time. Over the years, I lost so many people, but as everyone leaves, my anxiety stays. I don’t want to express her as a metaphor, but what I’m trying to say is that she is considered my best friend with benefits for a reason. Even though some days she hurts my feelings, makes me sad, she still stays with me and that boosts up my confidence. I become stronger because the flaws and the things you have been through are what make you strong in the end.

No matter what I do, I know that she would never leave my side.

I promise I’m fine.