Ciera/18

My mental health problems are real and they are valid. I will not judge myself for the bad days when I can barely get out of bed. I will not make myself feel worse because someone else appears to be handling their mental illness better than I am handling mine. Recovery is not a competition.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

i want you to want me, in all the ways i’ve wanted you.

“When did I betray your heart? I never betrayed your heart.”

“I feel broken. I can’t open myself up to those I’ve known a long time. The last time I spoke about the thing that lurks beneath my skin I almost ripped my skin off me.”

“I am mentally ambidextrous. I could see myself in a mirror and see something beautiful. But in the same day I could see my reflection and despise everything about me.”

“There are some things that I won’t forget no matter how much I try. Yes, I will remember your birthday this year and the year after that, and the year after that. I will think of greeting you but I won’t, I will force every fiber of myself not to. I will remember the exact day I met you, and the fact that I made it my PIN number because it’s the only thing I know for certain I won’t forget. I will remember the last day I saw you and how I realised that day that we’ve become two different people that no longer fit in each other’s narratives. Point is, even though it’s over it will still be a part of me because there are some things that won’t leave you no matter how much you try to forget.”