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My whole life I was afraid. Afraid of people, afraid of being alone, afraid of the dark. I grew up with a diagnosed sociopath for a father and a heart condition that threatened to end me. Even after escaping that horrible, abusive man I found myself afraid of people. I still fear people creeping in while I'm sleeping, or hurting me just because I'm there. As my medical problems grew worse, so did my fears. How do you escape when you can barely move? Recently I found out my deformed heart can actually cause me to have anxiety, and I have a restrained form of schizophrenia which causes me absolute terror a few seconds at a time, and makes me imagine things as if they were real. Upon being told this, I was then informed I was lucky, the mental issue was non-progressive with medication and so many have it way worse . . . but any time these spastic terrors act up, it damages my heart further. So I have a life of torment and two conditions causing me to be afraid, and that fear is causing me to slowly die a painful, terrifying death as I feel myself get weaker and the chest pain keeps me up at night, wondering if this will be my last.

When I was eleven years old, my first poem was published. The magazine purchased several others, and commented how 'real' the little stories were, and how passionate my writing was. I wrote about my fears, and it turned them into my power. I knew it then, but at the end of High School, the drama and jealousy caused by my writing forced me to stop. I was removed from school when a teacher I idolized stabbed me in the back, and years later admitted it was because she couldn't stand seeing me every day and knowing I was published, while she was not. . . so I gave in, and did what I thought would make everyone happy. I let the nightmares and horrors return and my safe haven be left forgotten.

And I've had enough.

Serial killers terrify me. I would watch happy videos and wonder how they can enjoy themselves, with killers everywhere? The BTK murders kept me up at night, despite the fact that the man was caught. Any mention of murderers used to have me running to hide, but now? Now they're an interesting topic I happen to study. It becomes harder for the fear to takeover when you're using the subject matter as research and plot ideas for a book. All these things that used to scare me, the paranormal and the literal, writing can defeat them. It's become my mission statement.

I cannot control the chaos and risks of my life. What I can do, is control how I will handle them, and I can no longer let the fear win.