5 Things Nobody Ever Tells You About Not Being Okay
By Deborah Lee
1. That people wouldn’t understand.
Just because my moods change as fast as the flick of a switch, doesn’t mean I can control it. This is the virus of my brain and my heart, and they will not (cannot) be confined under home-made microscope slides for scrutiny and criticism. Please don’t tell me to “stop being depressed”, because your words are not able to prevent the collision of drunken drivers, or the free fall of a tired human soul off the heavens. I’m trying my hardest to fight off this poison in my veins, and if they can’t listen to me, they won’t listen to you. I don’t want you to be an antidepressant that I have to struggle with and against in my system, even though you might be my cure. I need you to be my backup oxygen supply whenever I feel my head going beneath the waves, and I’m too tired to fight. I’m not the boat captain. I’m just a sail, and I crumple under the lightest breeze. I can’t just grow a thicker fabric, nor stop the wind from affecting me. Please know that.
2. That you yourself can’t understand.
I know I’m slowly destroying myself from the inside out, yet I can’t fight it. There’s a thunderstorm, and the 62% of water I am made of betrays me — conducting lightning too often and too painfully. But I am paralyzed, left broken and alone, and I know I am too weak to fight. Maybe I am traveling the lonely road, heading towards the cliff, and the only way I can go is off. There are days when I feel like I am the bird above treetops, but mostly, I am the youngling that has fallen from its nest and is waiting for someone to take it home. There is no in between.
I hate fights, I hate being alone, yet the one thing I battle the most is me, and I always end up losing. I have no one, not even myself.
3. You’re going to love so much that you hate.
You will love someone so much, so painfully, that you’ll hate them for not always being there. You’ll need someone so much in your life, that you start detesting them as a coping mechanism, because you know one day they’ll stop loving you and you need the fall to be as painless as possible. Your feelings towards your friends are going to seesaw drastically, your heart as heavy as the anchor that drags down your friendship. Some days you’ll just feel massively unloved, and you blame yourself. Some days you’ll wake up with extreme anger in your heart and brain, anger at the ones that you think have abandoned you. Some days you think you’re the luckiest person in the world to have such loving people around you. The same people that you spend the rest of your time hating. Everyone is going to seem like the moon at one point in time — half lit up in glorious illumination and the other half shrouded in distrustful shadows. I am sorry that I do not have an instruction manual or crystal ball to tell you what mood will come next, and how to dissect it cleanly without spilling innocent blood. I can only tell you that it will be terrifyingly painful, and painfully terrifying.
4. There are so many things you want someone to know, but you won’t tell them.
The reason your brain is on overdrive right now is because someone, or some people, hurt you so much that your mind is now programmed to believe that you are the cause of your own pain just because it appears on your own skin and trickles down from your own eyes. I want to tell them how much of me they’ve destroyed, how many bricks they’ve pulled from my foundations. I want to tell them how much they’ve scarred me, emotionally and physically, how their name was on my mind when I etched shameful marks onto my skin.
You want to tell them, “ Look, you’ve broken me. Now fix me.”
But you never really get the chance or courage to face them again, to tell them in their face that they’ve fucked you up so so bad. It gets to a point where you’re just so afraid of being hurt again that you leave your heart in shards on the floor and cordon it off with insecurities, so that no one will find it and break it to even smaller pieces that cut twice as painfully.
5. For every 90% of shit you go through, you gain 10% of strength.
You might be sitting on a roller coaster ride of forgotten replies and people that have abandoned you. It is inevitable that at every corkscrew and 180 degree turn, your heart is going to stop and your tears slip down your throat. But, after every fearful dive and gut-wrenching fall, you’re going to have a moment of calm. You know the next sharp turn is around the corner, but in that instant, your heart beats faster and stronger, because it is not going to let you falter and die.
Everyone’s struggling on their own personal obstacle course. Sometimes there’ll be someone there to hold your hand and help you over that fallen star or through the hazy tomorrow. Sometimes, everyone seems to be ahead and you’re left with only cold silence and weary thoughts as your companion.
But, whenever you’re surrounded by silence, remember that you can hear twice as clearly, and remember that your heart is beating twice as fast, twice as fervently. The finishing line is not nearby, I won’t lie to you, but I promise you that you only ache because you’re growing stronger.
We, we are all fighting different battles, but the same war. You don’t need spears sharpened with words, or shields polished with fears; darling, all you need is your own brave heart. That is enough.