Too many people feel the sneaking, slithering chill of depression and anxiety. Silently, small crawling creatures, use sharp talons to grip the tissue. Relishing in your uncertainties and over thinking tendencies. They smile as you start having a hard time breathing and as your vision starts to blur they are euphoric, sinking their claws even further into your soul, lapping up the gor that slips from your fresh wounds.

It’s kind of a grayish blue. Like the fog of blur that sets into the corners of your vision, closing in as you start to hyperventilate. Hands trembling, you attempt to regain composure. You’re an adult, you have bills to pay and can’t afford another unpaid day off. Up comes your breakfast, luckily you made it to the bathroom because you would have no energy to clean up after yourself if you didn’t … again.

Staring blankly into the mirror you take three steady breaths and head to the fridge. Hesitantly, you grab one of the sugar filled energy drinks and silently hope that this one won’t be the one that gives you a heart attack. Checking for the 17th time, you have everything you need, you tell yourself as you rush through the door.

A blue swept under the rug. If your anything like me, most days you push through just as I do. Making sure that no one can see the seams that I blend so effortlessly on the edges of my mask.

I have had little time to find that book. The book where the main character is similar to me. Fighting the fight and pushing feelings of inferiority back, as I  am far from perfect. Marie is that girl. She was born into a troubled family life. Domestic violence feeding the anxiety and depression tendencies that are welded into her DNA. Letting them grow into a monster by the time she’s an ‘adult’.

She battles through feelings of Self loathing, partly due to the way media has made her feel. To the mainstream public she is plus sized and this makes it all the more difficult for her to blossum. ‘You’re not good enough’ the creatures hiss into her ears as she focuses all of her energy towards appearing normal.

She has no idea how people actually see her. She is clueless, watching her feet as she shuffles them through each day. No idea until Ian happens. Overly attractive and seemingly very confident, Ian uses his powerful hands to pull the demons from her skin. One by one they fall, retreating to the back of her mind as he saves her. 

That’s too easy though, they are not gone. They wait patiently, gnawing at the chained box, finding precisely the right moment to seep out and grasp at her ankles.

As it often happens, life hurls Marie from her safe place. Thrusting her back into old habits. She will never be safe, never be worthy of anything more. The evil entities take control of her decisions once again. Once again breathing becomes impossible and seeing through the fog becomes a futile effort. It will never change.

Or will it?

Angela Edmonds