At recess, the others ran themselves until they dropped, fueled by their sense of pure, innocent, childhood fun.
But Abby paced.
Five years old, on the edge of the controlled chaos of the playground, arms stiff at her sides, shoes tracing the exact same worn path.
No one had told her to do so. She did it out of her own anxiety of failure.
The fear was her own. Quiet. Constant.
What if she broke a rule she didn’t know existed? What if she upset her superiors?
By middle school, the fear had moved in fully on Abby’s growing mind.
She couldn’t sleep without reading herself numb. Couldn’t speak in class without her hands shaking.
She was afraid of teachers. Of being noticed. Of speaking up.
Afraid of being wrong.
The medication helped — and didn’t.
It dulled the panic. Let her move through the day without feeling like she’d drown in a sea of her own unease.
But it deflated everything else about her, too. Joy. Curiosity. Connection.
It protected her, even as it isolated her.
Some friendships didn’t survive.
Neither did the version of herself she used to be.
Still, she says, “I don’t think there was any way that it could have been any different. But I don’t regret any of the decisions I made.”
Now, she writes.
Poetry, mostly. Emotional, specific, pure.
She writes using her own intense emotion, suppressed in her speech but evident through her outlet of rhyme and verse.
She doesn’t always speak out loud, so she lets her written word do it for her,
She knows her voice is quieter than some. But it’s strong.
And it’s hers.
And when the anxiety creeps back in — in the silence before speaking, in the glare of unfamiliar eyes —
She remembers the girl walking the line.
Not with pity. But with a sense of pride.
Because that girl may not have run with the others.
But she kept on moving.
