plagued.

Sometimes the world is just too much, and I just want to not exist for a bit.

My head gets clouded with thoughts, and they're messy, disconnected, and overlapping, and I can't make sense of anything. I can't focus. People's voices mix with the words in my head, and I get overwhelmed. Silence is a distant memory, and the more I try to clear my head, the more thoughts clog it up.

I start to feel like I'm falling down a deep dark hole, but I can't ask for help. My heart burns and aches but my brain turns on me and tells me that I'm not worth one minute of anyone's time, and that I shouldn't bother people. I want to call someone, anyone, and just talk, tell them how I feel but my mind won't let me.

It says that I have no one, and that people won't understand. They'll think I'm crazy, or over-reacting, or just trying to get attention. It feeds on my low self-esteem, reminding me that I'm invisible, a nobody, a faceless statistic amongst a sea of people drowning in mental illness. I start to believe it.

I doubt my self-worth. I wonder what kind of impact, if any, I've ever had on anyone's life. I speculate how long it would take before people didn't even remember my name. How long before my animals stopped wondering if I was coming home.

I feel so alone, so trapped in this illness that lies, and breaks me down, and makes me hate myself. I want to tell someone, and I want reassurance, to know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but so often I don't get it. Instead I hear "just stop being sad" or "stop crying, your life is good." I know my life is good, that's not the issue. And I can't just stop being sad. This pain is real, these demons are real; I've got the scars to prove it.

I'm tired of feeling stigmatized because I can't always control my emotions. I'm tired of having anxiety attacks. I'm tired of living with this disease, and I'm tired of feeling tired all the time. I just want to...rest.