I saw a star beneath the stairs glowing through the melting walls.

There are days when the darkness finds it’s way back into my life and just as quickly as it did, it fades. There are moments when I find myself falling down and wondering if I’ll get back up. There are moments in my life right now where I think about cutting even though I’ve been cut free for so long; going ten years more long.  I’ve lost count. There are days when I find a grey matter world and colors faded into a black and white. And all the while I’m feeling this I know it’ll not last.  It’s just a know now that I’ll get past a bout of depression and the clouds will fade. Color will restore. I just have to weather the storm. 

Right now my life is in a very weird place and it’s something I certainly would have never expected. And it’s hard to explain the depth of just how much I’ve learned about myself and the realization of how far I’ve come.  It amazes me—my immense strength—how I’m able to smile in a  weird sort of dark time in my life. Carry on so well. This I feel like shouldn’t be happening. Shouldn’t I be a completely mess? Shouldn’t I be crying everyday? Should I be as calm and collected as I am with a choice that may have to be made? It seems wrong. It seems as if I shouldn’t be this. I need to be something else, but I feel like I’ve already dealt with something of this magnitude and I can handle this. 

Since my mother’s accident I’ve been a pro. I admit to fully crying once in the middle of Barnes and Nobel. We’re talking a full emotional breakdown here. That was one of two  breakdowns, the other was not exactly because of her accident—in which I’ll explain later. Since then there have been moments where a few tears were shed, but I tell myself I can’t cry. I have to be tough. I am the one that has to be the coach for the rest of the team. I am the strong one. I am equipped for this. I can handle it. Crying makes me weak and I can’t be weak in a time like this. I have to be strong and be there for those who aren’t nearly as strong as me. I know that it’s not what I need to be, but damn I very well feel like it. 

It’s not expected of me, and it’s not even asked of me. But it’s my role in what life is right now. I don’t know what’s pushing me. Why I’m this strong and I don’t understand how I am this strong. I question it and frankly it makes me wonder. 

When this all first happened I didn’t feel a thing. I just went day by day for several weeks going through the motions of everyday life. Everyday life actually was hard in terms of trying to process and feel anything. Instead I became a sponge, soaking up life and feelings around me. 

As an empath, other people’s feelings were finding their ways into me. I felt everyone’s happiness or their feelings of just feeling good and all the while I’m absolutely fine because they’re fine. I got to the point where the only thing I wanted to feel was a sense of numbness and let me feel good when I was ready, nor because the world was. I didn’t want to hang out with friends or family. My love got mad at me for this, but I didn’t want to be around them.  I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to have their fun, their feelings pressed on to me like a hot iron on to a piece of cloth. No one could understand this. I didn’t myself.  I had to breakdown and cry. I had to just lose myself completely. I had to speak out and record on Facebook live my heartfelt feelings. Explain why I was so anti-social and why I had to be alone. After that things got better. I learned to feel my own feelings. I learned to put a wall up and not let feelings from the world penetrate my wall. I knew that my empathic abilities couldn’t let me feel my own things. 

Gradually things got better, my feelings returned. I began being social and learning that feeling fine was my own feelings.  There are some days when I feel as if I’m falling apart and when I just need to curl up in a blanket and stay there, when I need to hear music that makes me feel better. It’s not so much the falling apart that gets me. It’s the days that I have lack of sleep when I feel this way and emotions hit hard and I get exhausted from it. I just need that calm, that moment and that security. It’s what makes me better. And it’s what’s pulled me through this weird part of my life right now. Whatever works, works.