Not Alone

This is in response to the too-many people who are wrestling with their own brains, resigned to their solitude. To those who have opened up about their struggles, and to those who lock them so deeply they can barely feel the jagged edges. You are lonely, but you're not alone.

As I've gotten older, I've noticed it takes me longer to recover from system shocks. An evening of drinking will leave me nastily hungover where I could once pop back with a shower and a stick of gum. An afternoon of crying, similarly, will fill my head with cotton and my eyes with dust for the remainder of the day. It's probably best for my health that I try to minimize both activities, but the ideal doesn't necessarily change the reality. Life is hard, anxiety is hard, depression is freaking hard. There are sneaky brain weasels hiding in the creases of your life, waiting to pull that tripwire a little tighter. The sneaky brain weasels are cunning - they know every doubt that flickers through your mind, and they're armed with butterfly nets and magnifying glasses.

Sometimes my mind feels larger than my skull, and I need lie down outside and be absorbed by the grass. Sometimes the world hits me so hard that I feel the edges of myself curling in. Sometimes my bedroom is my only haven, and sometimes it's my self-guarded prison cell. I relish the quiet hum of loneliness as I stretch my arms to press against the invisible, seemingly-impermeable walls of my bubble. I stare at unsent text messages before deleting them. I stare at unwashed dishes before crawling back into the safety of my blanket nest.

Please note that I am fine. Not necessarily always Fine, but fine. I have a great support system and a great therapist. I am extraordinarily lucky for both. Not everyone is as lucky as I am, and not everyone has the ability to talk about it. And that's why we must talk about it as much as we can. Talk about mental health, and the struggles we face. Talk about our hopes, our sadness, our desperation. Empty our darkness into the ether until we're not even sure where ours ends and the worlds' begins. If we spilled our thoughts the way wrists spill blood, we would all be better off. We, the anxious, the depressed, the flat-out sad, the past-the-breaking-point, the weakest links, the stronger-than-we-know.

We are lonely, but we are not alone.