"Conversations in My Head" - by Sulihat Suleiman

Anxiety:What if you fail? What if they laugh?What if they see straight through you?It never stops questioning, never stops spinning,wrapping your thoughts into a tangled knotyou can’t untie.Every word rehearsed, every step doubted,every silence feels like judgment waiting to fall. Depression:And why do you even bother?You’re exhausted before the day begins.You crawl through hours that feel like years.Nothing changes. Nothing ever will.It’s easier to stay in bed,let the ceiling be your only witness.The world doesn’t care if you rise or if you vanish. Panic:It’s happening now! You’re not safe!Your chest is tight — can’t you feel it?Your body shakes, your breath is broken,your heart pounds louder than your thoughts.The room tilts, the floor buckles,your skin burns like fire and ice together.This is it the end right here, right now. Anxiety:See? You should’ve prepared.You should’ve been stronger.If you slip, if you stumble, they’ll all notice.You’re never enough, never ready,always one mistake away from collapse. Depression:Collapse, then.Fall apart and stay there.Stop chasing light that never reaches you.Stop pretending you’re more than dust.You’re already broken just let it finish. Panic:You can’t breathe! Don’t you feel it?Your lungs closing, the air slipping away.Your heart claws out of your chest,your hands tremble, your vision blurs.It’s not in your head it’s real,and it’s happening now. They overlap Anxiety piling questions like weights,Depression drowning every answer,Panic pounding against my ribs until I shake. And then I remember Panic is a season.Not a storm you wait out, but a month that takes root.It comes like cold rain and stays,turning small things into avalanches:a ring of keys, a missed text, a swallowed laugh.It makes my chest a drum that won’t stop,makes my hands count the cracks in the ceilingas if each one might open. Anxiety tills the soil first, whispering seeds of maybe and what-if.It’s patient, clever — it weeds out hope,replaces sunlight with endless rehearsals of failure.It sits at the table with me,asking the same questions until my answers fray. Depression arrives like winterwith no spring on the calendar.It folds itself over days like a heavy coat,turns color to ash, appetite to nothing or too much.I have days where I eat six breads not because I’m full,but because I’m feeding a hollow,like I’m preparing for someone’s funeral.As if consumption could anchor me to the world.We eat as if death has already happened,as if filling the body might silence the echo. Panic (interrupting):It’s happening. Now. Can’t you feel it?It screams inside my ribs,turning breath into barter how much air will I trade for calm?My heart races like an animalthat remembers an unseen trap;sweat slicks my palms and logic slips on the floor. Anxiety:You should’ve known better.You always fall apart right when it matters. Depression:You’re tired. Stay down. Panic:You’re dying can’t you feel it? They argue in me like old relatives at a wedding Anxiety trims the worst-case speech,Depression writes the eulogy in the margins,Panic pounds on the door until the door agrees to open. And me I am the audience and the stage,the actor who forgot lines,the one who keeps standingeven when everything else falls. Sometimes I speak back.My voice is small,a match trying to light inside a cellar.“Stop. Not today.”It’s swallowed by their chorus,but once in a while, a syllable lands a soft, ridiculous truth:I am more than the echo they make. There are nights I map their faces by memory:Anxiety’s thin, clever grin;Depression’s slow, heavy eyes;Panic’s open mouth a sudden animal noise.I learn their timing like weather predictable only in its return.I learn to carry an umbrella even when the sky is calm. This isn’t heroism.It’s survival in small, clumsy increments.A glass of water between waves,a hand pressed to my chest until the thudding eases,a whisper that says, “I’m still here.” And if panic is a season,then I will plant one ridiculous, defiant thing:a small, stubborn seed of morning.I’ll water it with the crumbs of ordinary days a text sent, a shower taken, a song remembered.Maybe one day the season will change,or maybe I’ll just learn to keep a sweater for it. Either way I’ll name the voices, set my own table,and eat not to bury grief,but to say:I am still here.Breathing.Alive.In the messy, human room where they all meet.

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