I've been here before, far to many times. My mind has taken off, wandering into the dark places. Opening subjects out of my mental file cabinets that I don't like to discus. The room is filled with light, but me, I only see darkness. I instilled all of these bad behaviors in my self as coping mechanisms. By no real choice of my own. Each time I would finally release the mental notes I had been taking for so long, I was shut down. Told "your are wrong", "I don't have time for this". " You brought it on yourself." "just get over it". Or the worst..... silence.
What if they had listened? What if they had used that moment to really listen, to the real me? Did they know how much courage it took to come to them? Did they know that I had held it in so long before coming to them and I had reached a dangerous breaking point?
Most days I push through, I speak loudly so not to go unnoticed, it also helps to quiet the demons living inside. Maybe if I act like I am coping well they wont see how much of a mess I am. After all I don't want to bother them, it never ends well for me. How lonely I feel inside even in a room full of people. Honestly though, I seek attention. Hoping that someone will see through the masks I bare. And for once they wont stumble on words before distancing themselves because its to much or they don't want to be bothered.
Its always been like this though. When I needed someone to be my voice for my tiny self, they left me behind. Minimized, swept the room clean, and under the rug it went.
I wonder what my life would be like if someone had spoken up, took my hand and said " I got you, let me carry your burden". I didn't find that until I found my husband. But even now, I am not always fully open because he bares such a heavy weight already.
Often times I am crying, no SCREAMING out for help when it gets so bad, but I've mastered the art of playing the parade of masks on my day to day that it all just seems normal, or "oh, shes just emotional today, shes fine"
Ive been there to many times. And before I reacted with what I found was the only "cure" for the big emotions, the pain. MORE pain. That knife to the skin, the blood leaving my body, pulling me our of my numb space. It made me feel real, alive, human.
I refrain from reverting back because its not an acceptable form of coping. So I taught myself to speak up, speak out. Its not always welcomed though. Who wants to hear they may have hurt your feelings, or hear the sad details of your childhood sexual abuse, the days you spent in the hospital bedside of your tiny child waiting for them to pass because doctors say they have done all they can for them. Most don't want to know these details. I forget that its to much, to detailed for them, and its hard for them to listen to at times.
But its become my saving grace. Speaking up when I get to that drowning point of my depression. When I've been fighting for my breaths for months and my bodies finally to exhausted to fight it any more and I start to be pulled under. I try to catch my second wind just before the water reaches the tip of my nose.
I pull myself out, breathe a deep breath or twenty. Indulge in a hot bath with music, throw myself into housework, training at the gym. Something, ANYTHING to pull myself out and just SURVIVE.
It scares me though. I wont lie. What if I don't hit that second wind one day when it gets so bad. I fail......
I drown.
I cant think to hard on it though. I only have now, the fight I have right now. My kids need and deserve it, along with my husband. So I wake up. Fight another day. Smile and push through. Its all I can do. Just breathe. Besides I hate the deep water and I don't want to surrender because I am to damn stubborn.
"And I know that I can survive. Id walk through fire to save my life. And I want it, I want my life so bad. I'm doing everything I can." (Sia-elastic heart)
