When Your Own Mind Is The Scariest Thing Of All

They always say, “Life is scary.”

I don’t know who “they” are, but the people that say things like that I suppose. People are always so afraid of their pasts, their futures, the moment they’re in right at this second, but that’s not what scares me the most. I mean sure, I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, nor than 5 years from now and that’s scary, but I can shut that out for a minute, a day or a week.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think there’s something so empowering about our minds and souls. I think that knowing at the end of the day, that no matter who leaves our lives, who hurts us or was never there in the first place, we have ourselves to lean on. We can build ourselves to be the strongest and most loyal foundations of our lives, but what comes with that is terrifying. The people, the places, the traffic we sit in daily, even being the other end of a phone call is all something. Something that makes our minds race, our thoughts worry about someone or something else even for just a second.

When that’s all gone, when the silence sits in, all we have is ourselves. We have our regrets, memories, thoughts about who we are, what we want to become, who loves us, what we look like, what we want to do with the rest of our lives and every other anxious and monotonous thought we have in one day. When that silence sets in, my mind screams.

Darkness has never been something I’ve been fond of. It has never been comforting or therapeutic to sit in the darkness and silence of life and think about things. The reason being is that I am my worst enemy. Some days I fear being alone with myself more than all the bugs in the world, being on the top floor of a tall building with the windows open and the wind blowing and sucking me out, or being near the person that hurt me more than anyone.

I fear myself because I can shut all that out. I can close the windows, choose a different floor, leave the person, kill the bugs, but I can’t leave myself. I cannot get away from my thoughts and my challenges internally.

In life you go through things that make you, shape you, teach you and crush you. You go through life events that affect you positively, negatively and some that are just stepping stones to something better. With each and every day you make choices that you need to live with and keep moving forward from, but your mind doesn’t forget what the world does. Your mind traps these moments and uses them against you when you’re home at 3:00 am, listening to your boyfriend and dog snore just inches away from you. They’re used to push you to your breaking points while you watch your loved ones sleep so soundly, wishing that it was you.

I can run screaming from the bugs I am irrationally afraid of, but who do I run to when I’m the terrifying mess? Who can make my mind silent or my thoughts from being as harsh and confusing as they are? The answer is no one. That terrifying mess within you is you and it’s all you’ve got at the end of the day. So work on it. Go through the steps in order to find yourself in a way you haven’t before. Sit and make lists, write down your thoughts and try to find some clarity in the chaos. If all we have is ourselves at the end of the day, let’s start standing up against our fears and be more brave.

They say, “Monsters don’t sleep under your bed, they scream inside your head.”

I don’t know who “they” are, but they’re right. I can silence monsters in the human form, just not the kind that live in my thoughts and the memories of those silenced. Monsters are terrifying, but we can become even scarier. You have you. You are not alone because you’re full of laughter, life, strength and intelligence. Be the Disney princess that doesn’t need a handsome hero at the end of the movie because she has herself. I’m not saying don’t have anyone, because I do, but first and foremost I have to save myself. It’s no fun being saved all the time. Gather up the strength and find it within yourself to face yourself. Life is scary enough, don’t let yourself be.