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I don’t know for sure yet, but a friend of mine may have done something that he can’t undo: I think I could have helped prevented it. I think I’ve just lost him. I think I’ve failed at the only mission I’ve ever really cared about.
I’m just so scared, not only because I don’t know where he is or how he is but I’m also scared that others might follow. I don’t know what to do, and I feel like I haven’t done enough to prevent this.
And now I’m just here, barely able to reach out to anyone, afraid to open up because I’m convinced that it’ll spread like a virus.
And this loneliness I feel is that kind that both drowns you and hollows you out, suffocating as well as disintegrating. And I’m just so tired of the internal shouting matches and the tug-of-war in my head between reason and hopelessness.
I just want to be happy. I don’t want to feel this depression and this darkness every day. It’s been more than 6 and a half years and I’m just exhausted in every way. I’m just spent in every capacity.
And I feel guilty about asking for help from friends because of past traumas. I feel guilty about going out and being with people because it’s still a possibility to catch and spread COVID. And I feel guilty that I feel at all.
But this feeling of being alone all the time is so heavy. It’s so heavy. And I’m so tired and I feel so weak. And I don’t know what I can possibly do besides continue to sit alone in my house and watch the world go by outside my window.
I bake and I cook yet I have no appetite. I take showers throughout the day but never feel clean. I try to have my neighbors over but once they’re gone, the darkness returns and it’s once again time to lay in bed knowing sleep won’t come.
I’ve got books and podcasts and musicals and movies inside my head, stories that are begging to be told. And still I sit here, unmoving. How long until those fade away, too? How long until my dreams and my goals and my visions of what life could be are all gone and forgotten?
How long will my faith last? How long will my friends stick around? How long until every single person sees me for who I am and rejects me for it? I don’t know the answer, I can’t know the answer, there is no answer and still I can’t stop thinking that maybe it’s out there.
It feels like a better way is just outside my door and yet I’m frozen to my seat, staring at the door, refusing to just get up. It feels like I’m doing this on purpose. It feels like it’s my fault.
And so I’m stuck here. I can’t quit, I won’t quit, but I can’t see the path, I can’t hear my friends’ voices, I can’t feel anything. All I can do is put on a mask and in front of the façade I’ve built.
As much as I try to be authentic, a large part of me doesn’t trust anymore, doesn’t believe I’m worth anything anymore, and is constantly berating me, telling me to just give up the act.
The truth is that I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know if I can do the things that God has told me to do. I don’t know if I have the strength or the will or the stomach for the plans we made together:
I don’t know how long I can close every silent prayer begging God to take me home. I don’t know how long until I do give up on helping people. Most days I’ve given up on myself. But my heart breaks at the thought that I might give up on my siblings.
So I don’t know what to do. I want to help but I’m stuck inside my head, and I am afraid that people will die if I can’t get my act together, if I can’t be better. I know I shouldn’t think this way, but how many lives could I have saved? How many are over because of me?
Who am I not seeing, who are these suffering silently, invisible, unnoticed? Where are they? How can I help? Can I help? Can anyone help? Will anyone help?
