_{Letters to Strangers}

---

To the struggle,

I shoved my face into his sweater, hugging him goodnight felt harder than anything I'd ever imagined. I needed something, I needed him to stay, to promise me things. In a moment I was crying, and the confused blustering of relationships, "Oh shit, what did I do?" washed over him for a moment before I shakily assured him it wasn't him. I promised.

To ask for help is not a sign of weakness.
To hold everything in is not a sign of strength.

Despite how happy I have been, this afternoon my brain told me to hit 80 on the freeway and slam the Outback my mother lent me into a tree.

I hit 80 before I realized what was going on, and I slowly positioned myself back into my lane, pretending that that hadn't happened. To be honest, it's been awhile since my head told me to kill myself. This is the first time it scared me into talking about it.

I told him, "I'm falling back into depression faster than I can stand, and I don't have a reason for it." and I hid back into his sweater for a moment. He took my face in his hands and said, "I'm here." but that didn't work, I needed to tell him, so I did.

He was the first person to find out about everything. He was the only person I trusted to the point of knowing he could somehow manage to support me. I told him, "I'm scared as hell."

My happiness is not defeated. I am content into severity, but somehow I manage to slip into disparity as if light itself didn't exist. I know inside my heart I am happy. But my head thinks otherwise. I'm not sure how to handle this situation. I feel like I need time alone, but I've had so much time alone lately that the idea of 'time alone' seems daunting and uncomfortable.

To ask for help is a sign of strength.
To hold everything in is a sign of weakness.

I am not weak to the point that I will not help myself. I am not weak enough to hurt those around me. I am strong enough to love and to know I am loved. But am I strong enough to get over this, one more time? It's been over a year since I felt like any sign of hope had been devoured by the estranged cunt of society. How am I supposed to be happy when everything around me isn't so? As a perfectionist, that is what I want. Perfection. But when a close friend calls in the middle of the night, drunk, pleading, "I am so fucking alone" and I can only sit, cold, on my couch telling him that that isn't true. How am I supposed to feel?

I am so angry. I am so angry and lonesome and I hate everything. I am so anti-social that I cannot even understand why I am anti-social. My ability to reach out to people has dwindled considerably and I am sitting here, waiting, wondering how the hell I ask for help when I am the only one there to help me.

But that so isn't true, and I wish I would fucking realize that. But I am so tired of being treated like a child, being patronized. As if my struggle wasn't good enough, or doesn't exist.

I wish he had stayed, but I'm so glad he didn't. It takes me, alone, to stop wallowing in my own wake of pity. Had he stayed I probably would've just cried and made him scared.

I am not alone in this endeavor. I am not alone at all. I am cold, though, and I think that's what's making everything so goddamn muddy.

When he left I went and looked in the mirror. My eyes were just red, everything else seemed so pale. The only thing I could think was, "You don't look broken."