Echo: My companion anxiety?

by: E. A. Sahraeian

Is it worth it? I mean living, is it worth all the pain and suffering? I used to ask myself this every day; when all you have seen has been a hardship, life becomes countless long dark hours of waiting for something, anything. It becomes hard to see the point of living, or your purpose; slowly the roots of doubt start growing in our minds, and then it becomes hard to see the good in people or in the world. There is always that echo in our minds that keeps repeating all the misery and preparing us for the loud explosion of the true nature of humans, it keeps whispering that everyone is a monster in disguise so we keep looking at the world with a magnifying glass of doubt over every move and every word, thinking we are right.

The worst part of all this is that this Echo ends up hurting the ones we love most and we become our own number one enemy, we block happiness joy, and let life pass us by without noticing. Instead, we see our hair has become gray and there is nothing we can do now, we have already missed our chance, youth has passed and we had spent it waiting, there, in that busy messy chaos where life was happening, we missed it. We can�t make up for it, right? We take a look back we figure out that the Echo has always been with us, keeping us busy, making us believe that it was keeping us safe; IT was our comfort blanket, our safety net, always looking out for us, IT always made us ask ��What If�� questions, and the questions never had with good answers because they were ill-willed, to begin with.

It was at this point when I noticed the Echo is my enemy, I never needed it, I have never asked for it, but IT made me color my whole world grey, sad, and full of negative energy; all the villains in the world, even the comic ones, lived in my world till one day I said �STOP�. The Echo then got louder, until I shouted �STOP, I should be in here now leave me alone.�

And Echo said, �You can�t ignore me, the outcome of that decision is heartbreak, you BETTER listen to me.�

This part was very hard because I was scared of the threats of the Echo (anxiety) and it started throwing more �what if� questions, shocking ones, those that make you feel like you are breathing under a ton of rocks. At the same time, your heart wants to crawl out of your chest, and your whole body starts shaking, like a leaf barely holding onto a branch against a storm.

Now it can go two ways: either you give in or fight back, open your eyes, then come out of your mental world and see the real one. There is good even in storms.

Instead, take a deep breath and smell the grass, the earth after the rain. It brings you back to the real world which is much better than the one IT created.

To answer my own question �is it worth it?� who said we should live, love, and feel in a certain way? Just because it�s not like everyone else�s, it doesn�t make it wrong. There really isn�t a right way to feel or to love, the ones we know about or hear about, some are from brave ones who spoke up, and some are from loud ones.

You are here because you are meant to be here. You made it, enjoy it the way that your heart tells you, and believe me, the heart always knows right from wrong. Just be what you are, a human. And yes, Life is worth it, we can’t be selfish and just think of ourselves, what about the ones who love us! God put us here to enjoy the time we have on earth. The Echo is not part of it originally; it�s just the anxiety dressed up as your caretaker, don�t fight it, just let it know that you know what it is, and any dares it throws in your face just tell it when the time comes, I will handle it.

• This is my journey of healing from anxiety after many traumas in life. And this is my way to explain how it feels inside, I want anyone who can relate to this to know that you are not alone and there is always Hope. Just know you are not your anxiety, you are much more than that, just keep focusing on the good parts. Believe me, I know how IT fights back, but eventually, it will slowly fade away.