when your heart breaks, the aftermath can do so many things to you. it can make you scared. vulnerable. reckless. it can also make you strong, resilient, and wise. once you face the storm head on you realize you are still standing, or even if you’re just crawling, that you are still alive. this wasn’t the end for you. you faced something you were terrified of and you came out on the other side a different person, a stronger person even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. and i know when you look back on it you might wish you hadn’t had to go through it. we say “but what if?” or “it could’ve been different.” yet there are no what ifs. it wasn’t different. so now you take the hand you were dealt and you learn how to become better because of it. because guess what? being heartbroken has the chance to let you do that. see, when your heart shatters, and the cracks form, it can be tempting to fill them with various different things. we might want to seal them up with cement, holding us together and making it harder to get through. we can fill them with hatred or vengeance, and let it consume all that we are, cursing the people who put us in this place. we might try to fill them with temporary happiness, only to watch them dissolve and leave the cavities open again. yet we also have a chance to fill it them with empathy, expanding ourselves to understand others better. or fill them with hope for when the next time love ends up coming our way again. or even fill them with memories, so that we don’t forget the lessons we learned before. when your heart broke, it gave you a chance to expand and stretch it beyond anything you could fathom, to rebuild it, and guess what? it’s still beating. it’s still going. and so are you

she’s strong, because she’s in a constant battle with her anxiety. It’s telling her that she’s weak. That she shouldn’t speak up. That she shouldn’t get out of bed.

Some days, she listens to everything that voice tells her. But other days, she finds the power to ignore it. She finds the strength to leave her room. To socialize. To smile.

She’s strong, because she shows up, even when she’s shaking. She speaks, even when it’s with a cracked voice. She keeps breathing, even when those breaths are shaky.

It would be easy for her to cancel plans with her friends, turn down dates, skip class, call in sick from work — and sometimes, she does. Sometimes, the idea of being around people is too much for her to handle.

But most of the time, she does what she has to do. She switches off her alarm. She showers. She dresses. And then she gets shit done.

Of course, she gets distracted throughout the day. The tiniest thing can send her mind spinning. A text from someone she didn’t expect to hear from. An email she isn’t quite sure how to answer. A strange look from one of her coworkers or crushes.

She suffers from constant self-consciousness, but she pushes past it. She ignores the way she thinks everyone is looking at her, judging her, and she forces herself to be productive. She forces herself to focus on what’s important.

She refuses to let anxiety control her life. She won’t let her dark thoughts eclipse the positive ones. She’s motivated to be the best person she can be.

At times, her anxiety makes her feel weak. Lesser. Like she doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as people that can talk to strangers as if they’ve known each other for years.

But even though she feels inferior, that’s far from the truth. She’s a warrior. A badass. Why can’t she see that?

She tries so hard. She puts in so much effort. And she’s gotten so far.

Some people rarely venture outside of their comfort zone — but she’s outside of her comfort zone every damn day. She’s either worried about what to say or what to wear or where to park. She’s never relaxed. She’s always on edge.

That’s why she’s always learning. Always growing. Every second of every day.

Sure, there are times when she suffers from setbacks. When she doesn’t say a single word for hours. When she stays in her pajamas and puts off showering.

But there are other times when she finds the courage to speak her mind. When she surprises herself with how brave she can be.

She probably doesn’t realize it yet, but girls with anxiety are the strongest girls in the world, because they never have a minute of peace. Because they’re always struggling — and they’re always winning.

No she isn’t. She has this bad habit of overthinking. She tends to overreact more than she should, and she gets a little insecure every once in a while. She’ll be needy for your attention. She’ll want to literally take up all your time, and she’ll require a lot of reassurance. If anything she is everything you wouldn’t want in a girlfriend. She isn’t capable of fully trusting you, she doesn’t know when to stop fighting with you even if she’s wrong, and she has no problem pushing you away if she feels like you’re close to hurting her. Loving her will stress you out. Loving her will make you angry. Loving her will break your heart at times. Loving her will test you. Loving her will challenge you. Loving her will change you. It may get so demanding that you’ll be tempted to walk away, and you’ll think about giving up. It may get so complicated that you won’t want to deal with her anymore. Loving her means you get to see her at her worst and most vulnerable moments, and that’s something that you’ll have to be strong enough to handle because she needs someone who’s patient enough to understand why she is who she is. It’s not gonna be an easy relationship with her. But if she’s in love with you, then she can promise that you’ll be loved with such passion and intensity that you’ll forget what life felt like before she came along because she’ll always be there to put your heart back together after breaking it. Maybe she’s not the best at being loved, but she’s pretty amazing at loving.