Tag: loneliness

Even in the Night

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Darkness recognizes darkness.

That’s my theory on why I can’t seem to sleep until it’s light out.

While lying awake at night, I relish the thoughts of just going for a drive, going for late night/early morning McDonald’s, going out and about in the stillest of hours. At night it feels like I can do anything or be anyone.

Yet, as much as my bed often feels like a refuge, it feels like it has walls closing in as soon as the light begins to fade. Walls close in as the darkness quickens.

Sleep never comes easy at night but as the dawn breaks, I’m able to drift away securely.

The darkness in my mind and in my heart recognizes darkness and waits to conquer me once I close my eyes.

Half of this battle is working my entire life around this. In that, I have succeeded. I have worked one entire year of night shifts and have slept soundly during the daylight.

The darkness has all but put out my light.

How can darkness be at once still and freeing, yet heavy and suffocating?

I’m tired of the dark but it still feels safer, though only while awake.

I wish and wish for that eternal darkness where there is no need to worry about waking or sleeping; about dawn or dusk. For that I would go to sleep gladly, even in the night.

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

If Not Love

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Spending time with family used to bring me a little slice of contentment and peace, just knowing they were safe and happy was all it took.

Now it slowly slices off pieces of my heart. They are happy and safe, and they feel contentment and peace. I feel years removed from them. Their joy is no longer my joy. Time spent together is like rubbing salt in a wound, like hand sanitizer on paper cuts.

I spent so much of my life protecting them and shielding them and all I get for it is pain and faked smiles.

I was invited over for supper and by the time I got there, everyone had already eaten and the supper was cold. Their uncaring sliced deep. They were a family without me. I had worked thanklessly over Thanksgiving while they all spent time with loved ones but I did not get the same courtesy.

I spend so much time picking out presents for them that they will need or will find useful and I get not a one in return. My only gift this year was a jar of lotion in a scent that makes me nauseous, from my mother who doesn’t even like me.

It’s just one thing after another. There’s been times where I haven’t felt loved, but I’ve never felt so unloved.

I’ve always hoped to feel love from my family; true unconditional love. Now I don’t think I ever will.

I’ve loved them with my whole heart for my entire life.

I suppose I stuck with life partly because I always hoped I’d eventually feel love and that my family would feel like warmth and security. Family has been my safety plan for 20 years.

That’s what the books say, isn’t it? Have a safety plan. Create a safety plan. Have your friends help you make a safety plan.

Mine has been crossed out, scribbled over, crumpled up, and now it’s finished.

What is there left to live for, if not love?

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

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If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Fading

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I can’t explain the feeling other than to say it feels like I’m dying. It feels like a process and it feels like I’m fading out of my own life. Everything seems like it should be goodbye.

In Pirates of the Caribbean they have the black spot.

In Harry Potter they have The Grimm.

You can choose your own omen of death.

Reality has a dark cloud.

I just have this feeling.

It feels inevitable. I expected it to feel suffocating and am almost surprised that it doesn’t.

It feels like I’m just going through the motions of living my life, which is nothing new to me.

At this new stage in my life, I assumed things would be better than this. I have an actual chance to live the life I want to. I have a degree, I have a nursing license, I’m living by myself, I have a steady income. However, these check boxes and milestones do not guarantee happiness. I assumed they’d bring me the feeling of security I’ve been looking for all my life.

I still feel like I’m just walking on the edge. Added to that now is the dying.

I wish this feeling would tell me how much time I have left. I can’t help but wonder if it’ll progress and then I’ll know.

It’s still May. June is close but July feels as though I won’t make it that far.

Maybe I’ll just be forever fading away.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

Waiting

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I didn’t expect my twenties to be like this. I didn’t expect to spend my life waiting for my life to begin, waiting for adulthood to start, waiting for the inevitable to strike. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt old since I was young; spending too many years making too many decisions above my age. Perhaps because I’ve spent many years hoping and waiting for death. It’s already been more than a decade since I first wished to leave. It seems as though I’m always waiting for what’s next.

High school, done.

Driver’s license, done.

Relationship, done.

Post-secondary acceptance, done.

Graduation, done.

University, incomplete.

Breakup, done.

Diploma, done.

Job, done.

Nursing school, done.

Job, done.

The rest of my life, …?

I work too much, I pay bills, I buy groceries, I wash dishes (most of the time), I have a cat, I do laundry, I call my grandma.

When does the settled feeling start? When does the relief come? What next? When do I feel like I’ve got it all under control?

I’ve been striving for control since I was seven years old and I have yet to find it. Does peace come with letting that go? Probably. Will I? Probably not.

Perhaps the inevitable is me spending my life striving and searching for things beyond my grasp; spending my life waiting.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

Funerals, Loneliness, and Space

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At funerals, people love to use phrases like “she loved life and life loved her right back”, or “she found joy in the everyday living”, and “she lit up any room she walked into”. Even worse is “she was the life of any party”.

Anybody who uses sayings like those at my funeral will be lying or they never really knew me at all.

I’ve never really loved life, and life hasn’t loved me back. I’ve just been lucky enough to have loved people in this lifetime.

I have spent my life wishing that I could take up less space and wishing that I could take up none at all. Even as an adult, I spend my days cowering in my basement apartment, trying not to make noise or bother my upstairs neighbour.

I don’t want to be a bother.

I work hard to appear okay and work even harder to avoid vulnerability. If people don’t get close to me, I won’t be hurt when they inevitably leave.

That’s the truth.

Also the truth: I just want to be seen.

I only get hugs in my dreams, and I dream often of reuniting with people who truly know me; without me having to reach out first.

I am the friend who checks in with everyone else, I am not the friend that anyone checks in on. When I’m lonely, I reach out to others, though I doubt if I didn’t that they would notice.

I wonder, frequently, who would notice if I quit posting, quit communicating, and quit being.

I’m not sure my own aching loneliness could stand to be out of touch with people in that totality.

“Hey, how are you?”

“……. you?”

“Alright!”

This leaves no space for knowing, for wondering, for caring. I box myself into a corner by wanting people to ask how I am but then not answering truthfully when they do.

Life has always been lonely for me and I feel like it always will be. That looming perpetual loneliness is a heavy weight, one that I’m unwilling to bear.

I wish for sunshine, joy, and warmth to filter into my life as if I could remember what they feel like and I could recognize them if they came. By now, I’ve spent so much time in the dark, surely I could recognize light when I see it.

Perhaps not, perhaps all my days will be grey and cold. Maybe all my life will be empty.

I’m tired of taking up space in this world.

I’m so tired.

Nobody will say “she dreamed of death” or “she lived an aching life” at my funeral, though both will be true.

What will they say, then, to phrase the constant loneliness, emptiness, and chill that I have lived with? How can you spin looming despair into a personality trait?

If my friends can look me in the eyes and not see that I’m not okay, either I have done my job well or they’re not really looking; they’re never really seeing.

Life gave me loneliness. I searched so long for safety and protection, and now I only feel lonely. Loneliness is the only thing I am certain of.

There is no “life of the party” in me.

I do not light up any rooms.

Everyday living has no joy for me.

Who can see me?

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

Daunting

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Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts

From where I stand, the future looks nothing but daunting. It’s hard to remember the good at the end of such a terrible year. Each disappointment and struggle seems like a heavy stone in the backpack of life that I insist on carrying around.

The weight has pulled me off the podium I stood on at the start of the year and dragged me to where I teeter on the edge. Will I be just one more casualty of this year? It seems more appropriate to close my eyes for good when it’s still a terrible year, instead of souring a new one.

People are looking toward 2021 with hope, so much hope. All I feel is dread. Once the new year starts, my life has nothing left for me to do but to be tugged along with the passing of time. I have a degree, a license, a job, a life, and a home. I’ve lived so much life in these years, I don’t feel accomplished, I just feel old.

My friends are all moving on. They have their own lives. They have relationships, pets, children, homes, and triumphs. They look forward to adventures, to new beginnings, and to a future. Joy and love fill their lives with so much colour. I’m glad for them and envious at the same time.

I can’t feel the colour in my life anymore. I’ve learned how to avoid disappointment by avoiding expectations and hope. Each day is a consistent defeat in itself, why add to it? Food is bland, tea is lukewarm, sleep is fitful, and warm is never warm enough.

A bleak winter’s day with thin sun and glaring brightness is my reality. Nothing has colour and everything is too bright to be enjoyed. The trees are bare and the wind whistles enough to chill my bones. It is silent except for my trudging foot steps. I pass houses with warm light shining from festively decked windows and see smoke from what I imagine to be a warm fire inside. These houses are not for me. I have never been inside one, nor will I ever know the love and joy bottled within them.

My chest aches with the cold, the emptiness, and the loneliness. It is as familiar to me as my breath and the beat of my heart.

Despair.

Sorrow.

Hopelessness.

I used to long and now I find myself longing no more. I don’t want to find the energy to enjoy life. I’d rather fade away into this bleak winter’s day and never trouble the sunniness of a new year.

Maybe in another lifetime I’ll see colour again and find the warmth. That, too, seems daunting but it’s the only hope I cling to, the hope that lies in death. Hope that death will be kind to me as this life hasn’t been.

I’d like to fade away in sleep, though rest is something I never find at night. Perhaps that is the secret to the kindness of death. Dying instead of sleeping doesn’t feel so daunting after all.

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Lonely or Alone?

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Holidays and family are supposed to bring joy, love, and hope. They are known for gatherings and good company. This year, people are going to extraordinary lengths to connect with loved ones from a distance to maintain any sense of normalcy.

Here I sit, surrounded by my little family, and I’m feeling more alone than maybe ever before.

Oh, the scorn I would feel if people knew how I was taking being able to gather for granted.

There’s so much pressure when you come back to family; pressure to assume the same roles and to put on the same shoes, to live behind the same façade, to do the same pretending.

“I’m happy.”

“Everything is fine.”

“I’m glad to be here.”

“I love the holidays.”

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

When you celebrate with the same family in your broken childhood home, it feels different as you get older. Everyone pretends they’re the same and that we can’t see all the cracks.

I’ve never felt so lonely- pretending I’m the me they know, when I’m the me that I know. I don’t feel comfortable around them. I don’t feel comfortable with myself. I am not happy. I’d rather be with people who love me for being me, who would love me if they really knew me.

I want to die but here I am celebrating trivial things and faking a smile.

My heart aches and my chest hurts from pure loneliness.

The forced joy of the season makes this feeling so much worse. Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing new to me. The global circumstances just make the guilt bigger too. How dare I feel this way when I’m so fortunate?

I’ve come full circle to where it’s truly a pain to live again. I’ve been here before. It’s almost as if all the work I’ve done to leave this place never happened. I’m stuck going in circles; the struggle is perpetual.

Am I lonely or am I alone?

Lonely. Always lonely.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Crisis Services Canada

What Nobody Told Me

leannaemgee1 Comment

I’d be lonely.

Friends would become acquaintances.

People don’t actually care how you’re doing even though they ask.

It’s not cool to care.

Saying no is good for you.

Coping skills are important.

Anxiety is real.

Honesty isn’t valued.

Depression will talk to you.

Loneliness can drown you.

Forever doesn’t really mean forever.

Politics do matter.

You do get to choose your family.

People are selfish.

The loudest voices win.

Self-harm isn’t only one type of behaviour.

Cynicism is a defence mechanism.

 

Depression and anxiety cloud your judgement and make you believe lies are your only reality.

 

Hope this finds you well,

-L