I shuffle across the floor, and slam my hand down on my alarm clock to get it to stop blaring at me. I know most people would just use their phones, but one time my phone died in the middle of the night and I missed an entire class period…on an exam day. And just like I will never forget that day, I will never again rely solely on my iPhone to wake me up. Instead, I will set three alarms on my phone, and one on my regular clock. It’s just safer that way. I drag myself to the bathroom and as I’m getting ready I declare all the Scriptures I have scribbled on notecards all over my mirror. I know that the best way to fight is with The Word, so every morning I pull out my best weapon, before my day has even really begun.

As I change my outfit for the fifth time, I tell myself that every one I have tried on thus far has been just fine and that as long as everything is covered, the people at church aren’t going to care whether I wear the black sweater or the pink sweater. But then again…if I wear black, people might think something is wrong with me, like maybe I’m depressed or angry or something. I reach for the pink sweater, but then I realize that if I wear that one, people might think I’m trying to be a preppy snot. Aaaaaand now I’m back at square one. I tell myself this is ridiculous, and I just grab my blue sweater instead. You can’t really say a whole lot about a blue sweater…right?

After I lock my bedroom door and pull to make sure it’s secure, I walk to the kitchen and grab my breakfast to head out the door. But then I remember that I only checked my door’s lock once. I tell myself it’s locked, there’s no way it’s still open. But I can’t shake the thought, so I walk back over and discover that it is in fact locked. Pulling my front door closed behind me, I jiggle the handle about seven times, just to make sure that it’s locked too. The entire way down to my car I think about how crazy it is to check a lock that many times, every single time I leave my apartment. I just push the thoughts aside, because wandering towards that rabbit hole is dangerous territory.

I turn into my church’s parking lot, smile and wave at the church employee monitoring the lot, and immediately wonder if my smile looked weird. I don’t want him to think I was trying to mock him or something. I get out of my car and walk with my face down, looking at my phone — even though the screen isn’t even turned on — the entire way to the door, just so I don’t have to make eye contact with this man that I know I offended.

Somehow, I make it through the service with a clear head. One of the women I see there every week walks up and compliments me on my sweater. See? There’s not much to say about a blue sweater. I drive home and pull into my usual parking space, make sure I’m centered in the spot, and turn the car off. I swing the door open, but before I get out, I do my routine check: making sure no lights are accidentally switched on (even though I haven’t used them in ages), making sure my windshield wiper handle is in the “off” position (even though it’s sunny today and I didn’t even use them), making sure my emergency brake is on (I wouldn’t want my car to roll away…in the flat parking lot), and making sure my turn signal handle is also in the “off” position. I didn’t always do this, but one time I accidentally left my turn signal handle pushed down and my car battery died and I was late for work, so I can’t let that happen again.

I walk up the stairs to my apartment and pull out my phone. My boyfriend still hasn’t texted me back, and it’s been a whole ten minutes. Did I say something wrong? Could I have worded my text better? I mean, I know all I said was “what are you up to today?” but he probably just doesn’t want to talk to me and is therefore ignoring me. I know I annoy him all the time, even though he is constantly telling me he loves me and misses me and that I don’t bother him at all. He’s just being nice, he just doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. Shaking my head, I shove my phone back into my pocket and walk into my apartment.

I hang my purse in its usual spot on my bedpost and look up at my clock. It’s two in the afternoon. Plenty of time to edit my writers' articles as well as write my own. I open my computer, go to the portal, and up pops one of the most panic-inducing notifications I have ever seen: “ERROR: This site cannot be reached.” Nooo no no no no. This isn’t happening again. This happened to me last week too. Instantly, my mind is racing, my heart is pounding. It’s 68 degrees outside and my window is open, but I’m sweating and I can’t breathe. My boss is going to hate me. She’s going to think I’m the worst editor in the world and she’s going to get angry again and she’s going to fire me. I’ll never be able to use this job as a reference, because she’ll have to tell everyone that I was a slacker and couldn’t do anything right. I glance at my phone next to my computer. I know I have to text her. I know I have to tell her I can’t get on the portal, but there’s no way to know how she’s going to react and adequately prepare myself for it. So I text her. And then I put my phone on silent, place it in my drawer, and go out into the kitchen to eat lunch.

The front door lock starts to jiggle, and I know that my roommate is home. I scramble to scoop all my stuff off the kitchen table, sprint into my room, and shut the door so I don’t have to talk to her. There’s nothing wrong with her, I just know that as soon as I start talking about my day I’m not going to be able to stop and it’ll probably end in tears, so it’s just better to spare her. My phone buzzes and I know it’s my boss upset with me that this is happening for the second week in a row. However, I see that it’s just my boyfriend telling me that he loves me and can’t wait to talk to me later in the day. I contemplate sharing what’s going on with him. I do, and he tells me it’s going to be okay and that I am going to be okay. I look up at my instruments on the wall. I want to play, because music is my favorite escape… but my hands are shaking too much to play anything at all.

I decide to call my mom. She starts asking me all these questions. Just regular mom questions: nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that’s really that stressful. But they’re questions I don’t know the answers to. Questions I haven’t even thought about. Questions I probably should know the answers to. I can’t tell her to stop asking me so many questions because I can’t stand the thought of hurting her feelings, but my mind is a flurry of thoughts and I’m digging into the skin around my nails and I notice that I’ve started bleeding. Flinging open my door, I run to the kitchen, jerk open the freezer, and grab a handful of ice and squeeze it in my hand as hard as I possibly can. Apparently it’s supposed to bring me back to reality so that my mind doesn’t spiral all over the place. Surprisingly it works, even though I no longer have any feeling in my hand.

It’s ten o’clock, and all my homework is done. Slipping into bed, I pick my phone up one more time. My boss still hasn’t responded. She’s probably thinking of what she’s going to say when she fires me. I wonder how long it’s going to take me to get that off my mind long enough to fall asleep. After tossing and turning for who knows how long, I finally exhaust myself to the point that my body forces my mind to shut down and let me sleep.

I’ll get up tomorrow and keep fighting, just like I always do. I have faith that there will come a day when my mind no longer dwells in a constant state of swirling nonsense. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by speaking, so I will continue to speak out against this. Just like most health improvements though, it doesn’t happen overnight. But that’s okay, because I have faith, and I have seen it work time and time again, because my God always keeps His promises.