The things that plague me many can’t see. They are hidden behind a smiling face, and a happy hello. They nag me during the day and torment me at night. They hold me captive to my past using bars of regret and critical thought that built a prison of anxiety that locks me away in the darkest place of my mind, where my screams are twisted and changed to words of pleasant contentment.
A man once visited me there. He offered words of hope and a single solution. If you climb high enough, you can escape and with these words, he handed me a tool. It was finally here. An answer to every problem. It was hope in the hopelessness that encompassed me. It was an offer of something brighter. I started climbing growing stronger as I ascended, and the escape was within my grasp. I had finally made it. I was out of the dark immerse in a blissful light. Then suddenly like a switch it all went dark. The darkness was everywhere. I was no longer at the familiar bottom or the top in the blissful light but lost somewhere in-between. A purgatory that filled my heart with a sense of dread. This wasn’t right. I was supposed to be in the light. I had hope. I reached out trying to find something anything familiar. I saw a flash, and with a stretched out my arms hoping to be taken back to the light, but the floor vanished beneath my feet. Sending me crashing down to the prison floor. The shock hurt my body but destroyed my soul. Numb hurting and scared. I looked back up at the man with tears in my eyes, he just smiled and started fading away, but as he disappeared I heard him whisper you are your own worst enemy.