No one can do it alone. No one has ever done it alone.
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Yesterday I allowed myself to ask for help. I didn’t want to.
The voice inside my head told me that I was being selfish, that no one would help with such a personal request. The voice told me that they wouldn’t understand. It told me I’d be judged harshly, ridiculed, rejected. It warned that I’d witness my worst fear: the silence of indifference.
That voice never stopped talking. It never wavered from its condemnation. I fought through the fear and doubt, the shame. Then I stalled. Then I thought, fuck it, and waited for the inevitable disappointment. I waited for abandonment as the nausea crept up my throat.
I’ve listened to that voice since I was a child.
I’m not worthy.
I’m a mistake.
I don’t count.
I’m a failure.
I’m nobody.
It’s hard to stand outside myself, to observe objectively. It’s complicated. A riddle I tell myself without knowing the answer. I’m trying to figure it out, the truth of it and how it has defined me. The bad, the good. We are handed many lies in life, by our parents, by our culture. Some are deliberate, others just the thread of the realities we weave.
I’ve spent the latter half of my life being practical, literal, realistic. In control. Level headed. At least what I thought. Granted, this was in response to almost annihilating myself during the first half. But the result was the same.
Fear. Pain. Sadness. A hunger for the love I couldn’t find within.
I’m trying to identify and separate the dysfunction, the manifestation, and the effect — forcing myself to pick the jewels of wisdom out of the sharp, shattered remains of my past.
It’s the confrontation, the conflict between what you believed and what is true, that is the challenge. Confidence is sparse when you realize the foundation you have built your life upon is cracked, crumbling, and false.
No one cares. You are on your own.
I’ve fought alone for so long. No one can do it alone. No one has ever done it alone.
One by one, family and friends and strangers each held out their hand. And in that action they silently said, “Here. Take it. I will lift you up.” Even when they didn’t understand. Even though they didn’t know me beyond the thin reflection of social media.
People do care. They want to help.
Ask.
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Photo credit: Lydia/Flickr