Hey Rach,

“What scares you the most?”

I would rattle off answers as quickly as I could think of them: spiders, being buried alive, small spaces and not being able to touch the bottom if I’m in the ocean. I would list all the normal things because I wasn’t ever ready for the deeper conversation about the time I realized I was truly afraid of death, of dying alone, dying by my own hands. The type of fear where you freeze and can’t make a sound, thinking about the unknown and what comes after. The possibility of absolutely nothing, and the uncertainty in everything we do; could this be the last thing we ever do?

I had a moment of peace, where I took what felt like the first deep breath I’d taken in months. I closed my eyes and felt the grass beneath my hands. In a split second, the thing that scared me the most was knowing I had to face my fears. To be brutally honest. Honesty where it might actually have been easier to tear my own heart out of my chest with nothing but my bare hands and my fingernails that were bitten down to nothing.

The things I had to say: “I don’t want to die like this,” and “Please just fix me,” and of course, the hardest one being “I know I need help.”

Sit still, and breathe deeply. Let your anxiety travel from your brain to your shoulders, down your arms and out through your fingertips. Focus on breathing and simply just existing. Take a minute and don’t think about the things that brought you here. Just inhale and exhale and don’t think about how your name could be the next one spoken: “Tell us why you’re here.”

How I ended up where I am is a long, chaotic story that I would tell out of order and apologize repeatedly for talking too fast, but I would remember all the tiny details. Every single choice I made brought me to the next place that I was meant for; on and on until there was only one option that made sense. I don’t have regrets, because I know I was meant to survive. To face the feelings that I kept stuffing down into the deepest part of my soul, hoping they wouldn’t ever resurface.

“I’m here because I was too afraid not to be. I needed to see what comes next. I am worlds stronger than my worst fears; they won’t ever win.”

(Style score 84%)