I was in the 5th grade when I met you. Your subtle presence was both haunting and intriguing, the shadow of a stranger cast past midnight, a mystery I was itching to solve. I can still remember the first night you graced me with your existence, your facade bathed in 3 a.m moonlight, we laid in silence and you ate away at my sanity piece by piece while my heart raced and tears welled up in my eyes because I had never felt this way before. You stuck around, sometimes a quiet resident in the dark recesses of my mind, other times an ear-splitting melody that wreaked cerebral havoc, impossible to avoid.

Our bond got stronger with the passage of time. You followed me everywhere: school, work, doctor's appointments and birthday parties, if I was there, so were you. I detested the dynamic of our toxic relationship, the way you neglected to grant me a moment of privacy, the way you sabotaged every interaction I attempted to have, wedging yourself between my friends and I without an apology. I cannot count how many sleepless nights I've spent with you, crying silently, my face pressed into my tear-stained pillow and my music cranked to the max, still not enough to drown out the deafening cries that thundered in my head. At parties I would sit in the corner with you, the amount of attention you demanded from me robbed me of a fulfilling social life and perpetually left me in the dust. I looked forward to the hour of night where I could lay in my room wrapped in darkness with you, the sense of familiarity had become inherently comforting to me.

In middle school, I finally told my friends about you. I cannot express how much I appreciated the help they tried to offer, but they just didn't know you like I did. They said one day you would go away, but I couldn't bear to admit that I didn't want you to; I didn't know how to live without you. I couldn't remember the days before you were in my life, it was like we'd known each other forever.

In high school, I came to accept you. I wrote about you in tattered notebooks every night only to tuck them away in secret hiding places before dawn, I kept a box of tissues under my bed so I wouldn't wake up with mascara stains on my pillow cases. I dreamt of ways to end the pain that I was feeling, but woke up every morning to a system reboot and trekked the whole journey again day after day. Some days were better than others, but you only let me soar if you knew I'd crash the next minute. I couldn't stand the whiplash-inducing roller coaster ride you buckled me into every day, the spikes and troughs left my head spinning and my stomach sick.

Somewhere along our journey, I lost myself. You subjected me to countless heartbreaks, one-sided and gut wrenching, experiences I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You submerged my heart in a murky pond of loneliness for what felt like an eternity, and took every opportunity you stumbled upon to make me feel weak. For all of this, I want to thank you.

I want to thank you for being there for me when nobody else was, because you taught me how to depend on myself. Thank you for showing me what it feels like to be completely alone, because it made me treasure companionship so much more. Thank you for turning my head into a pinball machine of different emotions, because it helped me find my passion for writing. Thank you for making me overthink despise the big things, because it made me admire the little things. Thank you for reducing me to tears, because it showed me who would wipe them away for me.

Finally, I want to thank you for showing your true colors, because it made me fall in love with someone else: myself.