I'm doing great now, and life is good. But my mind won't let me feel okay, and family doesn't make it better.

New hobbies, new music, more friends, life is good. Except a few things. I'm flying out for a vacation early tomorrow morning and I have so many feelings and thoughts running through my mind. It's hard to enjoy these vacations when 2 of my family members will get drunk at a restaurant pretty much every day, my whole family bothers me and I get singled out a lot. They'll purposely do things that bug me even though I've made it clear I hate it and I just want to scream nearly every day we go to see our grandparents. It's suffocating, a mental drain, and gets tiring.

Then, at school, things are going good, but I feel empty and as if I'm drifting through the year. I'm getting good grades while not doing very much to get them, or maybe I am, it's hard to tell when everything is such a blur now-a-days. My parents put a lot of pressure on me to be a perfect student, which isn't happening and it weighs on me, but most of all: I'm afraid to let myself down. I have such big dreams and plans for the future, and I'm doing better than ever, my mental state is well, and I'm still getting good grades. I can be doing fine in school and be happy with my grades, but my mind doesn't care. Fear slowly seeps into my mind, thoughts making me stress over the smallest of things.

Why don't you give up? You'll never be good enough.

You're going to fail, why try?

Your friends don't like you.

People are just pretending to be friends with you because they feel bad.

..These thoughts, over and over, louder and louder until I snap. I feel like I have no one to go to, either. My dad is constantly out of town, my mom just turns things into arguments, makes me feel worse, and then plays the victim. I feel annoying if I go to friends when my anxiety gets bad, because I don't want them to think I except them to fix me. I don't. If anything, I just need support. Someone to say that everything will be okay and that these feelings will pass. At the end of the day, it's just me alone with those internal fears and anxieties. I've done a good job at suppressing my anxiety and pushing my thoughts away, but this upcoming trip has really set it off again, the thoughts of dealing with a family that I feel I don't belong in, one that annoys me to no end, surrounded by people I don't know, away from my friends for the Holiday Season that I already don't like. Being around my friends would make things so much easier. During the holidays, there's so much pressure to be happy and I just can't do it. I can't fake happiness anymore. It's an exhausting facade, which is why I'd rather stay quiet and keep to myself now. I'm not saying I can't be happy in the moment, but this time of the year is when I'm the most down.

Even with friends though, I feel alone. Do they even like me? Do they genuinely want me around? I push them away too often, or I convince myself that they don't really want me around. It's been so hard to gain trust that my new closest friends will still be there in a year, unlike so many others. I'm slowly breaking down my walls regarding that, and I'm happy that I am, but the underlying fears drown me some-days and it makes it so much harder to fully trust them. I'm not scared to break them down, even though I've been hurt by doing so in the past. One thing that I can tell anyone reading this: You will find real friends, people who love you for you, and do want you around. I know I have, and it's my own fault that I find it hard to believe those things sometimes.

I'm in the best state I've been in years, but I've got so many little things that pile up and exacerbates my anxiety. There's a struggle between my logical brain and my fears. I know so many of these thoughts just aren't true deep down, but I also find it very hard to believe that some days when my fears come rushing back and I'm left defenseless against my anxiety. But, I'm not going to let anxiety and fears win. You are stronger than what ails you. I haven't been stripped of my confidence or positive outlook just yet. When your mind tells you things like these, it's lying to you. Don't believe it. You are more than that, and you are stronger than that. You are all strong and these fears won't last. For people who deal with these issues and fight their insecurities and anxieties every step of the way, I am so proud of you, you are strong. For those who are struggling, I believe in you and I won't let you fall. These fears will fade and you will survive.

"I can still believe" ~ Paramore

-DuskSong