Every step I took, every move I made, I felt like my lungs could’ve collapsed at any moment. I paced around the kitchen area, forgetting even how many circles I did around the kitchen island.

The boom of every footstep was loud enough to quite possibly break the hard lock I had on my anxiety. My breathing quickened, tears threatened to fall at any moment, and my chest began to cave in.

“If I stay here, they’ll all hear me.”

The monotonous circling around the kitchen island wasn’t going to cut it anymore. The mundane distractions I had sought after to try and forget about the boulder of fear hanging over my head had long stopped working. With a hand over my mouth and tears staining my cheeks, I took the urgency to climb the stairs faster than I ever had before.

I slammed the door shut behind me and cried.

A cry so powerful the next day my eyes were swollen and, I couldn’t breathe out of my nose.

A cry so forceful that I had to hum to myself in bed to try and calm down.

A cry so god damn awful that my brother heard from the room over.

I tried my best not to sob or whimper, but the pain was too much. The anguish of self-hate was overbearing. It had a tight grip on my heart. The purgatory that is to not loving yourself, not believing in yourself, and regretting your existence. It was a true hell to be stuck inside a mind with all those thoughts and to never have the courage to seek solace in a single person.

The worst part was not the crying. It was the silence.

I felt like if I spoke about it, there would be weight to my words and, all my worst fears would come true. All the terrifying truths I fought to push down would escape through my mouth freely.

I laid my head on my pillow and kept crying, hoping the tears would run dry eventually.

“Am I crazy?”

I was sitting on my bed, balled up with my knees to my chest, and humming to myself. Although it was calming, it isn’t the actions of someone doing too well.

Between sharp intakes of air and my throat threatening to close, I just couldn’t help but laugh.

Just like I always did, I needed to calm down and breathe, or at least something close to the semblance of a breath.

I removed my body from a protective position and just fell limp back into my mattress.

I started at the ceiling and just started to breathe.

Everything will be just fine if you take a second and breathe.