A Deer in the Headlights

I think you can guess the theme if you read.

Do you know how it feels to be apart?

Do you know how it feels to wake up in the morning and feel useless?

You get up and immediately get the sense that today will be s**t.

You think about what could possibly go wrong,

You analyse everything you could do today and immediately think of how you’ll f**k it up.

Do you know how it feels to break your own confidence?

To look in the mirror whilst thinking about how great you are,

Only to have some a*****e in the mirror tell you that you suck.

To take pride in your achievements,

Then some prick in your head says “It means nothing”.

Do you ever look at your clothes and wonder how others see them?

Do you think your wardrobe is too colourful and attention seeking?

Do you think the colours are too dark and brooding?

People might think you’re a depressed emo.

People might think you’re an attention w***e.

It only ever matters what other people think.

Do you know how it feels to walk down the street,

Feeling like the entire world is laughing at you?

Have you ever seen a group of people on the street and they happen to look back at you?

You’re then compelled to look away and you spend the next hour or two wondering what they think of you.

“What’s he staring at?”

“His clothes are weird”

“Jesus, he’s f**k ugly”

“He’s got a real funny walk”

“What a freak”

Insecurity dominates your brain every time you go outside.

And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Do you know how it feels to stop yourself from getting close to others?

Just because you think they hate you as much as you hate yourself?

Every time she tells you that you look great,

When she tells you she likes your hair, eyes, lips, anything.

When she says you make her laugh,

When she says you make her feel safe,

When she acts like you are everything to her,

But you feel like less than nothing.

Through your eyes, she hates you.

You only exist to embarrass her.

Even if she loves you, you don’t love yourself.

Therefore nobody else does.

Do you know how it feels to be able to do so much,

Yet you can’t do anything?

You have so much talent and so many ideas,

Yet you know nobody wants to know about it.

At home you play guitar like the ghost of Hendrix,

But outside you’re as talented as a three year old.

In private, you can build a fully functioning car from scraps and parts,

But at the garage, you’re only the cleaner,

Watching the engineers from the broom cupboard.

Where nobody can see, you can paint the river Nile almost perfectly,

But in art class, you’re very far from being Picasso.

It hurts.

Having so much to give, yet feeling as if nobody wants it.

Apparently there’s a fancy name for this.

They call it anxiety.

Some sort of ‘condition’.

What’s that supposed to mean?

This is something that we agreed to at birth?

It’s not something we have to live with but something we chose to have?

No.

This isn’t a “condition”.

Anxiety hurts people.

It imprisons people, making us slaves to our own self doubt.

It forces chains on our pride, ambition and happiness.

It kills us inside.

Having anxiety, to me, is like being a deer in headlights.

When it takes over, everything stops.

Time doesn’t slow or speed up. It all just stops.

Because anxiety traps you in the darkest part of your head.

It covers you in resentment, guilt, fear, doubt and misery.

So I guess the run over is the realisation.

The trick your brain plays on you,

That, no matter what, you’re nothing.