FACING THE DEMONS
I left scars on my arms from both cigars and razors. I started to drink in the morning before school, and I took any prescription pill that I could find.
The word recovery has always frightened me when it came to my own mental health. For years I’ve asked myself, how exactly do I recover from something that is with me for the rest of my life?
My anxiety can overwhelm me when I’m trying to sleep. Sometimes, as I’m about to drift off, I imagine a person is hovering over me. Although I’m fully aware that no one is actually there, my hands start to sweat and my feet turn to ice. A feeling of nausea builds until I’m about to vomit. If I try to stand up, my legs may collapse like cooked spaghetti. Other times, my anxiety sends me lurching out of bed to vacuum imaginary spiders from the corners of my ceiling.
When I was 17 and first realized that I had a mental illness, I spent the entire next year in complete denial, telling myself that one day I would wake up and
