Not Just Teens
I am a 70 year old young woman who has all my life struggled with wanting to fit in. Not just to be in the same room as everyone else, whether it be in grade school, high school, on my first job, or in a family gathering later on in life. Not ever feeling like I “belong” has been a struggle all my life. I feel my siblings do not understand me, my ideas or where my life has taken me. Why is life so tough to “belong”!
Always Broken
I never know how to feel anymore. Everyday that passes, I just feel like my will to stay alive is becoming less and less. I have constant thoughts of what would happen if I wasn’t here anymore? I want to tell the ones I love how I’ve been feeling, but I’m scared they won’t really understand and will just brush it off and not think anything of it… I just don’t know what to do anymore.
The Gap
Buy that cap sleeved shirt.
I know it makes your shoulders look
Big.
Even though your white tummy
Holds fast to the soft pink fabric.
Big.
Even though the sales lady recommendeds A larger size
Little Girl,
You are big.
But that doesn’t mean you’re bad.
Your big shoulders move mountains
And pull water
Your big back carries
Books and even burdens
Your big tummy holds raspberries and
Chilli from your warm, safe mother
Who tucked you into a cozy
Big bed each night
Little Girl,
You are big.
And you are sharper than
A freshly honed pencil,
Goofy, like when you serve mud pies
Baked in the sticky, summer sun,
And brimming with life, like a
Vegetable garden with snow peas,
Even taller than you are.
And as I sit in a cold room
Lifeless, hopeless, weak,
With people I’ve never seen
And dreams in my nightmares
I am finally
Small.
But I am not me now.
Legs quietly swing off the unsoiled table
Nervously, then stop.
The clouds finally break
And the drought ends with rain
On my big cheeks.
Little Girl.
You are big.
And you are good. So good.
Good Luck
The hospital’s Behavioral Health Ward discharged me around 5PM on a Wednesday. A curt nurse walked me down to the lobby to meet the cab they’d called for me (my discharge happened on short notice and none of my friends could give me a ride — I certainly didn’t hold it against them). She opened the door for me and, as I slid in, pushing my brown bag of dirty clothes into the seat next to me, said something I’d heard a few dozen times over the prior 48 hours.
“Good luck.”
You don’t really check into a psych ward with intentions of enjoying the experience. It’s something you do for yourself — if you do it willingly, that is. I’ve struggled with, among other issues, depression and anxiety all my life. I grew up a medicated kid and my bad experiences with ADD medications before I hit a double-digit age made me wary of medication for a long time. The same bad experiences kept me from attending therapy, save for a few short stints that were largely forced on me. In lieu of seeking the professional help I clearly needed for years, I kept my head above water, however slightly at times, by staying relentlessly busy, hitting the gym, taking up boxing, spending time with friends, and basically doing anything I could to be somewhere besides my apartment, where, in isolation, my depression would inevitably grow and take hold.
Again
It’s happening again
It’s happening again
I’m being bullied again
I feel hopeless again
I thought I was past this
But everywhere I go,
Every time I restart
People hate me
And I don’t understand why
Why I’m going through this again
I used to think it was them
But at a certain point,
I started wondering if there was just something wrong with me.
Do you ever just break? I mean in more of a sense of emotionally. Do you ever just take that deep breath and when you let it out it feels like your spirit is going with it? Every time I take that breath or look in the mirror at myself I lose my will to fight. I walk around in a shell of a body. I smile and laugh, but it never makes me feel whole. Happiness to me is fleeting and a wave of sorrow an anger engulfs it. I don’t even have those dark thoughts anymore it’s more as if it’s nothing. No emotions come with my thoughts anymore. When I speak it all becomes a mess of white noise. I used to want so badly to make people happy. Now… now I just want people to leave me alone. Everyone disappears in the end so why even create bonds. Why not break them now before they become too strong? Because when they finally do break you break along with them. Then you are left alone. If you keep everyone at a distance then there is no pain. Pain ruins people. Pain piles on top of you until you finally just become crushed. Crushed under all the false pretenses, all your fake smiles, all the expectations, and all of your own thoughts. I admit that I’ve been defeated. I’m so breathless and broken under here. Why won’t life just take back it’s deplorable “gift” it’s given me.
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