letters not sent–truths

Dear T,

I don’t want to write this letter. I don’t want to say these words. I don’t want to be sitting on this couch not understanding what I’ve done wrong yet again. I don’t really understand what you were trying to say to me but my ears heard that I need to try harder because I’m not doing well at it at all.

Some days I’m treading water and feel like it’s getting too deep. I should feel safe, but I don’t. I’ve tried to erase all connections to the past, but as hard as I try I can’t erase my dreams, my nightmares. I feel the weight of the future bearing down on me. A future I don’t want. So I keep running as fast as I can. Anywhere. Nowhere.

Sometimes it feels like I’ll be stuck with these bad days for the rest of my life. On really bad days I struggle immensely with my self worth and seem to lose all sense of purpose. I want to see the light and have faith that everything is going to be okay but the only thing I see is darkness and faith is just a word that has no meaning for me. And I try to be good and I try to follow the rules but sometimes I don’t even know what they are. I feel like I’ve somehow done all of these awful things that I deserve to be punished for.

I won’t lie to you. Sometimes it feels like death would be so much better than what we’re going through now. Life feels shitty. And it’s felt that way for a very long time.

You want me to tell you how things are. All I feel is awful. And I’m not sure what to do with the awfulness except try to run from it.

I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin. Truthfully, I’m not quite sure I ever have and I can’t help but wonder if I ever will. Do you know what that feels like? To walk around the world trying to convince yourself that you’re okay and you belong? It’s absolutely exhausting.

I’m tired. I’m so tired of being here and living this life. It hasn’t been a good life. It’s been hard and frustrating and always, always uncomfortable. And yeah, there’s a physical part of the tiredness but it’s so much more than that. It’s like a tiredness you just aren’t sure you will survive. Sleeping feels like it could be a good escape from all of these things, but sleeping has been hard for me. I miss the nothingness that sleep has the ability to create.

We don’t like to talk about the really dark things that go on in our mind. We are scared it’s going to make you sad. But sometimes it feels like we need to talk about them before we can’t control them anymore. Did you know that sometimes it’s all we can think about? Dying? And no matter how hard we try we just can’t shake the thoughts away? I think that’s when things can become dangerous for us because we live our life so secretly and don’t share when things feel really big and scary. Sometimes it feels like even you can’t help us. Then we don’t know what we’re supposed to do.

Not so long ago we revised our plan again. It was a really bad day for us and we wanted to make sure that if we were going to do it, it would work for us. We’ve always had a plan—we just go over it and over it to make sure it’s right. Sometimes, we’d like to throw the plan out the window and just get it over with. It’s hard when these feelings linger for such a long time and your mind works against you.

It feels like we’re drowning in our own thoughts. I so often want to tear myself to shreds to eliminate this push and pull I have between the logical part of my brain and the part that wants to self destruct. It’s a strange feeling when one minute you’re doing okay and the next something inside of you is telling you that you’d be better off dead. Some days I want out so bad that I can’t think of anything except how much I want out.

When I’m not thinking of dying, it doesn’t mean I’m living. Instead, it’s like there is this nothingness. It’s almost as though living doesn’t even show up on the radar. Most of the time it doesn’t feel like we’re living now. It’s more like we’re just making it through, day by day, night by night.

It’s hard existing this way.