AzizaB-loved

I know that you have been so misunderstood for far too long by far too many people. I know it feels like your voice doesn't matter as much as other people's.

I want to hear you. I want to notice you and understand you. You don't have to remain an enigma to me.

I want you around when you're not doing well. I want you around when you're hyperverbal and when you're nonverbal. I want to see you, if you need to be seen. I want to hear you, if you need to be heard.

I want to marvel at your art, laugh at your jokes, and read your writing. I want to sit in silence-- it doesn't feel awkward to me.

I like your individuality. I relate to your alienation. I care about your struggles.

You matter to me.

Love,

Tired.

I keep on waiting for my energy

To finally return to me

But it doesn't

I keep expecting to hold on

To the little hope I find

In little moments

Where I feel proud of myself

But in a single second

Any positive feelings

Or energy

Can be snatched away

By sounds that hurt my ears

Food that hurts my stomach

Smells that hurt my nose

Light that hurts my eyes

Or heat that hurts my skin

I can't conserve the energy for a specified amount of time

It's like the energy was never mine

But it was floating along

For the person with the fastest reflexes

Or the strongest arms

To grab and take with them

I only got a glimpse of it

Maybe I'm still in a lucid dream.

Where I can make decisions

And make changes,

But the day just repeats itself

Over and over again

And I'm back where I started.

I try new things

And retry old things

To wake myself up

But I can't do it.

No matter what

I'm stuck in the dream

In the endless loop

In the afterlife...

I'm Sisyphus.

Being punished

By some unknown force

For some unknown transgression

To do the most futile thing

Everyday.

Cursed to hope for

A different outcome

Tomorrow.

It feels like

After all this

So-called "time"

Part of me

Has given up

On getting better

On breaking out

Of the pattern.

It feels like

This is all there is

All there ever was

For me

I can't distinguish

Dreams

I can't decide whether to go back to residential treatment. I'm tired of always moving around, having to adjust to new places. So far there's nowhere that feels like home to me.

In treatment I feel like my freedoms are taken away and that's extremely disregulating. But they have all different types of therapy there even animal-assisted therapy.

My mind has become my prison

Every way I turn I see a reminder

Of my failure

To embrace being alive

My failure to become what I wanted to become

Or to find what

I wanted to find.

I think I know

What hell feels like

It feels like being trapped

With nowhere to run

And your mind playing the same recordings

With different distortions

And slowly losing

The ability

To feel anything

Good

And cursing your ears

Your eyes

Your breath

Your senses

For delivering to you

This imaginary pain

This distortion

This disturbance

You curse your mind

For bringing you to the precipice

Yet not throwing you off

For showing you

How broken you are

And demanding you fix yourself

And you curse

Your desires

Your awful desires

Your fruitless and pointless desires

For existing

For dissatisfying you

Again and again

And everyday

You slip further away from time

From reality

From life

And all you want

For many years my mind has served as a safe harbor for weary creatures in need of rest. I do my best to make them feel comfortable, to not judge them by their struggles, and to listen to and try to understand them.

After Depression, Loneliness, and many other creatures came to me, I was at my lowest. I had given everything I had and had burned out. I felt like I had nothing left to give. I didn't want to be a refuge for anyone else.

So when I heard someone at the door, I was tempted not to answer.

But I couldn't ignore the strange sound coming from the other side of the door. It was a low and guttural groan, like I had never heard before. It was loud and reverberated through my mind. I went to answer the door.

Standing before me, was a lioness.

I blinked and stared. Who was this creature and why had she come to me?

The lioness seemed to guess my questions.

"I am Strength." She groaned. Then she fell down, limp at my feet. I tugged her inside.

Day 3

Strength awakens after three days. She has been in and out of consciousness, but from what I can tell, she was utterly exhausted.

When she awakens I feed her and give her water. I let her rest without trying to ask her any questions, though I have many. Why had such a magnificent creature come to me?

Day 5

Strength is up and moving around now.

I ask her why she is so tired. She says she has been strong for a very long time.

Day 10

Strength has regained much of her strength after resting with me. But she doesn't leave yet. I believe she has something to share with me.

Day 11

Strength has noticed how down I've been. She helps me around the house.

Day 16

Strength and I talk a lot. We each share parts of our stories with eachother. I enjoy having her around.

Day 22

Today I ask Strength why she hasn't left yet. She says she's here to help me. I am surprised.

"I thought I was supposed to help you," I tell her.

She says, "You have. I want to give it back."

Day 24

I prepare meals for Strength and myself. We go on walks together in the snow and I feel more at peace. I want to keep this feeling forever.

Day 26

I tell Strength I don't want to shelter creatures anymore.

She asks me why. I say it is too painful.

She asks me why I think some people exercise every single day even though they know it will be painful.

I say, "Because they know it will help them in the long run."

She nods. "Because they know it will make them stronger."

I think for a moment. Then I say, "why should I try to get stronger? You were strong for so long, it nearly killed you."

Strength just stares back at me with her eyes that resemble amber stones.

Day 31

Today strength tells me that every time my life brings pain and I endure it, it prepares me for the next time. It proves that I can survive.

"Don't try to run from pain," she says. "It will always find you. You have to accept that."

I don't know how to respond.

Day 39

Today I tell Strength about Depression. About what he told me. He will kill me to save himself.

Strength's eyes burn into mine.

"Did he?" She asks.

"No."

Day 42

I tell Strength about Loneliness. How she never found someone who could love her and stay with her.

"You did that." She says.

I open my mouth, but I have no reply.

Day 50

Strength is going away soon. But she promises to come back, when I need her. I feel comforted by that.

Day 64

Strength will leave today. She tells me that I must keep going no matter what. That I must not run away from hard things, from pain.

She says she knows she will get tired again, that she will not win every battle. But she will keep fighting, no matter what. I must do the same.

"You are stronger than you think you are. You are capable of surviving again and again."

What is love but a measure of our worth? A way to tell who is deserving and who is not. We chase love but instead we find ourselves contending, desperately trying to prove we are worthy of one person's next moment. That they haven't wasted the time spent with us or the pretty words they lathered us with. That our pain and our brokenness doesn't disqualify us from that which all people crave. On the hierarchy of needs, love and belonging come third, after food, water, and safety. But truthfully we are unsafe outside the fold of love.

What is living if we aren't accepted, aren't noticed, if we don't belong?

And what does it take to belong?

My heart is tormented by that very question. I live my life in worry and fear, that I will never be accepted, never find the security my biology says I need to survive. That my differences will forever hold me back from the esteem, the self-actualization that comes after love and belonging.

When I look at the world, I see a fractured reflection of what broke inside me. I see a tiring and endless repetition of the seeking and never finding, the hope and the dejection, the friends and partners who leave and who give up on us. What I see is bleak, for hatred, selfishness, and betrayal destroy us. They banish us to the desolate, the parched land outside of love, where survival is just out of reach.

I'd bury my head in the sand and forsake it all, if not for the persistent nagging hope that this time will be different. That maybe I am loveable beyond the barrage of hurt that marrs my past. That I'm not so beyond understanding, so strange and awkward, so impossible to put up with for longer than two years maximum.

When I look at myself I see an entity so entirely deserving, so full of light and potential, so capable of being fully loved. I see someone just like, and at the same time, so unlike anyone else. Someone who has survived what my mind said would kill me, someone who's hope could not be snuffed out, no matter what battering it took, or what impossible odds it was presented with.

And yet I still lack that feeling of safety and belonging that I tirelessly seek. I still find myself alone, wondering if I'm worth the heartache, worth the dashing of hopes my life seems so intent on bringing me. If my self-love is really enough.

And it terrifies me. I look to the future with dread, afraid that I will never find someone who is willing to stick with me for the duration. When I'm not talking, I'm too needy, or I'm suicidal. When I'm too anxious, or too depressed, or too autistic.

There's always something more important, something that takes priority over that needy friend, Aziza. That deep carer, deep feeler, deep emoter, Aziza. It's like if the ship is going down and we're deciding what to save and what to cast off, I don't make the cut.