Crow and Flame

I struggle with anxious thoughts.

Not the loud, dramatic kind that always announce themselves, but the quiet ones that settle in my body and stay.

They hum beneath my breath.

They follow me through ordinary moments.

They turn simple decisions into questions that never seem to end.

I question myself constantly.

Not because I don’t know who I am, but because anxiety convinces me that who I am is always on trial.

Did I do enough today?

Did I respond the right way?

Did I rest too long?

Did I try hard enough?

Did I take up too much space?

Or worse—did I disappear when I should have spoken?

Anxiety lives in the narrow space between being enough and being too much.

It creates an invisible line and tells me my safety depends on never crossing it.

It says love is conditional.

Belonging is fragile.

Worth must be earned again and again.

So I monitor myself.

My tone.

My reactions.

My needs.

My silence.

I replay conversations long after they end, searching for the moment where I became “too much” or “not enough.”

I carry the weight of invisible expectations—many of which were never spoken, yet feel absolute.

Some days, the fear is that I’m not doing enough.

That I’m falling behind in healing.

That everyone else is moving forward while I’m stuck trying to catch my breath.

That rest is laziness.

That slowing down is failure.

Other days, the fear shifts.

I worry I am too much.

Too emotional.

Too sensitive to the world.

Too honest about my pain.

Too aware of what hurts.

I learned somewhere along the way that taking up space was risky.

That expressing need could make me a burden.

That my feelings required justification in order to be valid.

Living like this is exhausting.

It is a constant state of self-surveillance.

A quiet hypervigilance that asks me to be smaller and stronger at the same time.

And yet—there are moments when something soft breaks through.

Moments when I realize that these anxious thoughts are not character flaws.

They are coping mechanisms.

They are the echoes of times when safety depended on being careful, agreeable, invisible, or exceptional.

I am learning that anxiety is not evidence that I am failing—it is evidence that I have been trying to survive.

I don’t exist to be perfectly calibrated for other people’s comfort.

I don’t exist to perform wellness or productivity or strength.

I don’t exist to shrink myself into something more acceptable.

I am allowed to have needs without apology.

I am allowed to rest without earning it.

I am allowed to feel deeply without explaining myself.

Being human means there will be days when I feel grounded and steady.

Days when I feel like too much.

Days when I feel like not enough at all.

None of these states determine my worth.

So when the anxious thoughts arrive—as they still do—I try to meet them differently now.

I place a hand on my chest.

I slow my breath.

I remind myself that questioning does not mean I am broken.

That worry does not mean I am weak.

It means I am paying attention.

It means I care.

It means I am learning how to be gentle with a nervous system that has known too much.

I am allowed to take up space in this world.

I am allowed to pause.

I am allowed to exist without proving anything.

Not more.

Not less.

Just here.

And today—right here—this is enough.