The days pass in fear. As the hours slowly crawl by, the fear arrives. This choking, black cloud arrives with no warning and causes paranoia, delusion, terror. The pain becomes a parasite that begins to eat away at the mind it has chosen to torment. This cloud appears as the anxiety that my body is riddled with every hour of every day. The simplicities of everyday life threaten to prove themselves impossible; the smallest tasks, such as getting out of bed each morning, become an infinite struggle. Each day, I feel that I cannot possibly go on living in this torture for another hour. The cloud beckons, inviting my weary, bruised body into the comforting serenity of nothingness. I feel the ground begin to crumble beneath my feet, and breath evades me. I struggle to keep myself from falling as I begin to lose faith.

As the rope of sanity slips from my fingers, I enter into a familiar place. The soft, comforting surroundings fill my tormented body with appreciation, with understanding, with acceptance. The darkness fights to maintain its grasp on my subconscious, but the cloud begins to evaporate. In this place, I feel true peace. I am not judged; I am not ridiculed. I begin to feel the pain retreat to the recesses of my mind, and the feeling of contentment spreads itself throughout me. I feel the black cloud begin to dissipate into harmless mist, and the anxiety scuttles away to lurk in the shadows of my mind. In this place, the feeling of peace defeats all else, and it manage to open my eyes and face my foes. It is only then that I realize that I am in the arms of my mother.