I’m 20. The past decade of my life has been shitty. I have severe anxiety. It’s so severe that long before covid, I completed high school without physically going to school. I wasn’t homeschooled, either. A woman would collect my work and she’d bring it to me at the public library after school. I did it all on my own.

I’m in college now. Going to college, actually. It’s hours away from home. It’s hard most of the time. I used to have people that I could rely on there, not so much anymore. 

I have to go back this weekend. Now, I don’t really drink. I hate drinking, I prefer smoking. I’ve never really gotten drunk, which is why I don’t really like drinking that much. There’s no point. I just drank half a bottle of wine. 

Guess what? I feel less anxious, but I don’t feel drunk. 

Do I just have to live like this for the rest of my life with no way to escape? Nothing doesn’t make me anxious. I run from everything because I’m so anxious. 

I shake. I cry. I throw up. I spend hours in the bathroom. 

But that’s when I’m at home. At school, I’m so anxious that I torture myself. I force myself to sit through everything with no reaction because I’m terrified of what people will think of me. Then, I go back to my dorm room and I collapse. 

My doctor won’t prescribe me Ativan because you’re “not supposed to be on that long-term.” 

I’m at a loss. I don’t want to live if I have to keep living like this because I feel like there are no options. I have no hope. I never asked to live, I never asked to be like this. I just want to be normal. 

I can’t even get drunk because my anxiety is so fucking bad that drinking only lessens the anxiety a bit. 

I’m barely living, what’s the point in being alive?