Trading Pain for Strength

How many times has it been, I’ve repeatedly lost myself to the sadness that resides in my heart, an overbearing shadow that slowly consumes my thoughts and steers me towards the wrong path. Well… some would say its pretty simple, count the amount of scars, the amount of battles I’ve fought and lost against my desires. I would say I’ve lost quite a few, surprising to say I somehow haven’t lost the war yet. It wasn’t always like this, I was definitely happy by society’s definition. I had many friends in school and never suffered from any mental illnesses as I grew up. So why did anything change?

In my case, your perspective changes when you meet someone who doesn’t share the same “light” as you do. Someone who is slowly losing hope in others but most importantly, in their own self… The worst part is, you cant do anything, you can try your best to give them all your happiness, but I’ve had to learn it the hard way that just doesn’t work. You cant receive something you don’t have anymore, you have to find it yourself.  So what happens when you don’t understand that concept? You lose yourself to the exact same feelings, desires and habits.

Every night passes, you slowly loss a part of yourself. You find yourself in the solitude of the darkness of your room, a razor in hand, maybe some music gently playing in the background. You slowly slide the flat edge of the razor along your skin in anticipation of the pain and relief that a simple action may give. Then without a second thought, you drag the razor across your skin and you watch the blood flow down your body. It hurts, but the emotional and mental validity the pain gives you overrides any feelings of sadness and regret.

Then your forced to try and hide the scars from your co-workers, your friends and your family. You wear a long sleeve shirt, constantly wear a sweater, or bandage it up and find a lame excuse to tell everyone. For some of you, that might seem a bit familiar. Then there are three types of people I’ve found, those who will blindly accept whatever you tell them, those who look past the lies but do nothing. Then there are those who can see past your words and see what you truly are. But then in self defense, you try to protect your actions from those who genuinely care, you shelter your desires that placed you in that situation in the first place. Though inside your genuinely happy that someone cares about you, that they choose to not ignore what your doing. Its really the type of friend we shed tears over because no matter how much of an idiot we are, that person doesn’t give up on you. Even after you try to push that person away, you contradict everything that person has to say and try your best to remain distant.. But they continue to try and help you… I really shouldn’t deserve such an amazing person in my life..

Even still though, through everything. The habits continue, all to remove any pain or sadness in your heart. You promise yourself you’ll stop, once you’ve completely hit rock bottom, you’ll come back, you’ll come back stronger and never subside to any dark thoughts. Maybe that’s just an illusion… How do you know, once you gone into the abyss, that you’ll be able to climb back out? How do you know you wont lose yourself?