Simultaneous Conflicted Points of View

How Can They Both Be The Truth





Surely I am dying. A cancer or poison or slow working illness is creeping in to finally remove me from a world I don't belong in. It's as if no one has ever felt this before and the loneliness of my pain will eat me alive. I am an embarrassment in all that I do, never able to choose the right words for the right people at the right time. I'll never be enough. Leaving me caught between weeks of trying so hard I exhaust every part of myself and others where I give up entirely. Wishing for death because I'm far too cowardly to consider bringing it to myself. Lying alone wishing to be surrounded by attention I know I don't deserve. Paralyzed between what I want, perhaps need, and what I am too ashamed to ask for. Knowing that I'm ruining everyone and everything that I am responsible for, I have the audacity to keep moving forward. Raising children I have no right to destroy and holding on to a husband that could have had so much more. Even my dog looks at me with eyes of "why me?". Clinging to my contributions that mean nothing to anyone as an excuse to keep dragging them all down. The pain is so real, so physical regardless of how it manifested that way or what emotional state it came from. Look at me, Look at me, Look at me. I beg like an attention hungry child hoping that someone will say something to convince me that there is something to see. My body twists and turns in the mirror like a warped animation. Never giving me a clear concept of what you all see, but somehow despite that uncertain view I manage to convince myself it is bad. Not horrific or disgusting, no exaggerations to deter me and remind me I must be elaborating on what's really there. Just a steady well understood...bad... I want so badly to rest my mind in a place of acceptance on a road to contentment but know all too well that place doesn't exist.


I am a healthy capable woman who suffers from well hidden, yet at times, severe anxiety and depression. Due to many different circumstances through the course of my life I choose to manage this without medical intervention and I am aware that I will be ok. Even with the darkest thoughts I can have I am still more than able to run a household and raise well adjusted children. My husband, while wonderful, is not "out of my league" and I know we each deserve each other. We are equally talented and flawed in separate ways giving us at most times a well balanced relationship. The things I do matter.I make a difference and without me life wouldn't be the same or as fulfilling for several people. We all deserve love and recognition and it's perfectly ok to point out your accomplishments sometimes. My appearance is average. Without the aid of vibrant hair color or eye catching clothes I mostly blend in with a crowd and that is normal and ok. Statistically I am slightly overweight but again, nothing noticeable amongst others. On occasion, if I put forth an effort I may even turn a head and attract positive attention about my appearance. I accept I am aging at a normal pace and everything is as it should be. The aches and pains I experience are relative to my activities or lack thereof. The stereotypical weight in my chest, the tingling in my body and the occasional racing of my heart are merely symptoms of my mental illness and if I'm honest with myself I should seek treatment. The illness itself causes me to second guess that and never take necessary steps. I will likely live a long life and people will recall me fondly when I pass at an appropriate time of a perfectly average cause. 

I am a plague of contagious misery

Waking in the morning to a sky which seems to be perpetually grey becomes a redundant and painful experience that i see you struggle even harder to overcome. I once pitied myself, selfishly assuming this was a weight that only I would ever carry. Time passed by and slowly eroded your stoic ability to remain my strength. Never realizing that with each descent into my pain I dragged you a little closer to that place where you can't climb back. Struggling to keep you alive, not breathing but truly living, it kills me more than anything ever could before. No bleeding wound nor moment of grief would ever compare to the feeling of watching all that i know you to be drain out like sand in an hour glass. Counting down the time until you can't see my love anymore. My fears and delusions run deep in these times, always exaggerating a situation that you can't help but deny and downplay. Electric rage for my own destructive nature beams out of me in a way you can't see but I can't not feel. It burns and it pushes back as I try to contain every curious question. Never allowing me to stifle my need to invade your personal pain. Is this Love? Is this devotion, or obsession or just a self sabotaging cycle I can't help but repeat. I can't answer to that but to say it is real, and intense and even in the best of times it hurts like nothing else....just knowing it can't be that good forever. The mania and wild passion will always have an expiration date and that time seems shorter the more intense the joy becomes. It is truly entering into the greatest love story of all time only to experience the end over and over in a loop that leaves you wondering if the next time it might not come back. What if your smiles all become fake and the deep rooted all consuming pain i endure in response never relents? I'll hold this burning ember of all our anguish calmly in my hand until the next flip of the hour glass. Never without the scar to remind me the sand always runs out.

The line

Like a child testing limits, poking bears that are sure to attack. I push a little further than i know I should each time. heart racing, mouth dried up and hands shaking beyond my control I toe the line of security. Announcing my secrets, airing the clean and dirty as if they were the same. Because there was never a secret that was far from being a lie that would someday be found out. I won't shame my pain to protect the world. I won't smile through my broken soul. We don't tell you "I'm fine" to hide ourselves, it's only to protect you from the awkward moments nobody prefers to experience. You are not my children, I owe you no safety. Pretending to be the type to alter my behavior would be unfair to us all. I've taken on the love of many who in their entire selves don't always please me but I didn't walk away.
        I am stifled, constantly on the edge of the next thing but chained down and unable to leap. Calm on the outside and running circles of shrieking panic inside. Trapped in a cage I built with you and now you're stuck inside too. Some days the sun will shine, the bars seem further apart and the cage seems big enough to stretch our legs...but I dare you to imagine a time when you couldn't at least see the bars in the distance. Knowing you're never truly free of the restraints we've made. Fearing when the sun is not warm and the space gets constricted. Painfully aware that the good is not permanent.