Just letting out the words...

I feel as though I have sunk. Into what? I don’t know. All I know is that I am far below the surface of life. It is as though, from some unknown depth, I am staring at my own life and the lives of others. I feel—I feel the pain, the sadness, the anxiety—but it is as if someone else is there in my place.

Embraces feel far away, and laughter seems trapped inside a glass bubble.

For brief moments, I rise to the surface, and how beautiful those moments are. But they are so short. Moments like the final breaths before death, when nothing matters anymore. I love that sense of nothing mattering, and the relief that comes with it.

I have asked for help. I have tried almost everything I knew how to do. And yet this black shadow has always been with me, for as long as I can remember myself. A little girl who would stay awake at night and cry from fear. Fear of life...

The sensation of boiling water burning across my chest and churning inside my stomach. The horrifying dizziness, the cold sweat, the shortness of breath... my face suddenly burning hot. Hope fading away. And only one thing remains: darkness, and more darkness...

I have done everything I could to rid myself of it, but sometimes—like these days—it grips me fiercely. It refuses to let go. It pushes my head down into a dark swamp, and from beneath it, I look upward.

And I just watch.

And I drown.