I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in a cold sweat thinking I’m being chased by a grunting, disfigured man wielding a hatchet. Usually we're at an abandoned campground, which leads me to believe this is a subconscious mashup of Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He never catches me. The only thing that ever happens is I'm running and he's chasing. It's pretty horrible. I know it’s not real, but it feels real, and you know how feelings are. They make everything real.

We've all felt a little incompetent, insufficient, overexposed, helpless, unlovable, terrified, defective, unfit and unsung at times. And deep down, for whatever reason, you might even think you deserve to. Because why else would you be feeling that way. Like the world is laughing at you.I promise you it's not.

The panic was there, staring me down in the face, all the time, like I had a hoodie on backwards and I couldn't get it off.

Fear is a bastard. Fear is an attention whore. I want to ask fear if it has mommy issues, because that’s the only reason I can think why it needs attention so bad. I want fear to get Parkinson’s. Then maybe fear will know how it feels to be on the run from something it doesn’t understand.

Rise up and lift your sword, peaceful warrior. Keep it strong and steady. You've already lived and fought a thousand battles, and you're not here—again—to cower in fear and pain.

I didn't really want to hurt myself. I just wanted my old body back. That, and my old sense of normalcy, which may not have been all that normal to begin with, but it was nothing like this. This was the exact opposite of normal. This was a David Lynch movie.