Dear Agony

Dear Agony,

So, this is where we come to now. I can finally say to you that I am winning. You’re not going to beat me, though God knows that you tried. I’m writing this to tell you that I won’t put up with it any more, OK? I don’t know what sort of sick being you must be to enjoy subjecting people to what I was subjected to, but now you’re going to have to back off. I’m done with you. You’ve lost, Agony, so deal with it.

I remember when we first met. I was sixteen years old and you took me by surprise, didn’t you? One minute I was a happy, normal sixteen year old, and then I turned around and there you were. Creeping up behind me like an unwanted shadow, you grabbed me and you wouldn’t let me go. I thought my life was over. At first I didn’t understand what you were. I thought I was just having a bad day, or that it would lift after a while, but you only dragged me down even more. You ripped away everything I loved. You took my ability to laugh, to smile, to love, to concentrate, to sleep ... my days just consisted of us sitting together. Just us, you taunting me constantly with terrible thoughts.

In those early days, you soon convinced me that you were almost my friend, didn’t you? You told me that no one would understand me when I described how I was feeling. You claimed that they would think I was weak, that they would think I just had to get over it. You told me that they would think I should just man up and take it, and you convinced me that I was better off keeping it to myself. So, it was just us two, for so long. Do you remember those days? Do you remember when I used to lie awake at night, trying to stop the tears rolling down my face, not even understand where they were coming from? You caused that, didn’t you, you sadistic piece of ... never mind. I’m not going to lower myself to that. You’re losing now; I don’t have to resort to name-calling.

Do you remember everything I lost during that time? I always used to love writing, but I couldn’t concentrate long enough to write anything decent. I never used to have trouble sleeping, but I would be wide awake through the lonely nights and tired while I was meant to be paying attention at school. I was sleeping in class. My good grades slipped. My teachers just thought I was lazy and unmotivated, and you convinced me of the same thing. Whispering in my ear over and over that I was a failure, and that I should just end it all ... and the terrible thing is ... I believed you. That’s the biggest thing you caused me to lose, Agony: my will to live.

Oh, and do you remember all of the things you ruined for me? Birthdays, parties, days out, nights in ... everything was ruined because of you. You haunted me, tormented me constantly. You were always there, every time I turned around. I started to see you almost as a person, shrouded in shadow, watching me, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike me down and watch me hurt. You enjoyed it, and you started to do it more and more frequently.

I still remember the day you almost won. Yes, almost won. I remember that I was beaten. I had nothing left to give, and I was going to escape from it all. You had stripped me of everything. My likes, my loves, my dislikes, my personality, my hobbies, my friends, my family. You had forced me to throw them all away, force them away from me by making me believe I was useless. Then you whispered all those horrible things into my mind. That the world would be better off without me, and that I would be doing the noble thing to take my own life. I was going to, because I couldn’t deal with constantly feeling you anymore, Agony. You were all I felt. I couldn’t feel happiness, excitement, hope. I couldn’t even feel bored or angry. It was just a stabbing pain in my heart, constantly there, eating away at me until I could finally take it no more. One day, with you following me as usual, I went to my bedroom and I wrote my suicide note.

I wrote it to my friends, my family, even my pets. Looking back, I know now why I took so long to write my note. I was wasting time. I was scared and I was starting to wonder if I really wanted to throw everything away. Of course, I would have probably gone through with it, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I wasn’t yet quite sure how to do it. I remember we used to look it up, didn’t we? Me and you, sitting at the computer for hours and hours, all those lonely nights spent looking up suicide methods. There were so many questions, weren’t there? What was fool proof? What was quick? What was the least painful way to do it? Where was the best place to do it? You would whisper in my ear that it was the best way, and I, of course, believed you. You sat triumphantly next to me as I penned out my last message, writing my apologies and my excuses to everyone who loved me.

That was when it happened, Agony. When I wrote the line, I’m sorry I have to do this to you; I know you love me and it’ll hurt you. You forgot to mention that, didn’t you? Through all your hard work making me into a miserable excuse for a human being, you forgot to mention that, no matter how much I screamed at my mom and dad, they still hugged me when they next saw me. No matter how many times I shouted at my friends that they didn’t understand, they would still come over to me the next day in school and ask me how I was. You made me forget that, even though I couldn’t love, they could. They loved me, Agony. They hated you for what you made me.

What you made me. I know now that it wasn’t my fault. It was all you, and if I didn’t want to put up with you anymore, I didn’t have to. You were wrong, Agony. They believed me when I told them, and not only did they all believe me, they were relieved. This was a problem, and problems can be fixed.

You robbed me of two years of my life, Agony. But let me tell you, you’re not going to take any more of me away. I’m getting better, and every single day I see you get smaller and smaller. You’re starting to vanish, because you’ve lost. I beat you. I’m not a failure, and this wasn’t my fault. I’m loved, Agony. It’s you that’s hated.

I hope you had fun while it lasted, because I’m through with you now.

Goodbye.

Conor.