They say, if you name your fear, you can defeat it.  Not sure it’s that easy, and I do wish I was in the “they” all-knowing group, but at this point, I’ll try anything.

My monster used to be invisible, dormant, easy to ignore.  First, it was because I didn’t know it even existed.  I miss those oblivious days now.  I hate ruining them with informed retrospect too, weighing down innocent memories with heavy explanations for how I felt, what I did that time.

Then, it was like a vague whisper, flitting about my mind from time to time, but quickly suppressed.  “It’s mild”, I happily reassured my listeners.  And myself.  How can something mild ever become monstrous?

But it did.  It is.  It hangs onto my legs, rides on my back, pushing me towards the ground.  It nudges me this way and that, turning balance and light footedness into a fantasy.  It’s not happy to simply cling onto me, it seeps inside as well, bringing prickles and numbness to random points, always keeping up the panic by going somewhere new. It makes me hope for rain, so I can drive, not walk to school.  It turns me into a nag, giving orders from a sitting position to do things that I’ve always done, things that I see as ‘my job’ to do.  It steals my identity, takes away all the things that I use to define myself, and bring meaning to my existence.

But my head, in my head is the worst.  The physical stuff is one thing, but the mental disabling is the part that I hate the most.  Flashes of inexplicable anger, waves of worry and fear over the future, and tears, many, many tears.  Some shed, most pushed down.  The monster is not dormant any more.  It is active, and terrifying.

But now, I know it.  Now, I’ve named it, described it, and one day, in my mind at least (I hope), I will defeat it.