Dear Diary: The Message

Dear Diary,

I have a message for you.

My words aren’t succinct. They aren’t planned, they aren’t…necessarily welcome. They aren’t smooth. They aren’t… almost aren’t polite.

I dig for words in the dirt. My gloves are getting all soiled, and I fear that they’re still not quite adequate enough. I hold my shears in shaky hands, wondering if–when–the next words come that they’ll form into phrases and if those phrases will jab at you like a sliding tongue or if they’ll be in your memory as the friend who wasn’t so polite. Or whether you will think ill of me if you found out what was going on through my head as I tried to tell you that you matter SO MUCH to me.

Mental illness feeds on the lies it tells you.

I know because what you are experiencing happens in my brain as well.

I know because I’ve been where you once stood and I’m SO VERY THANKFUL that you are here, alive and coherent, today even when sometimes and some days you wish you weren’t AT ALL. I know, because I, too, have been there.

I don’t know how to phrase this in a way that makes sense or in a way that takes the venom out of the demon’s words.

I don’t know how to convey to you that I’m so very glad that you got help. That you went to a psychiatric hospital to get help.

I don’t know how to convey to you how grateful I am to know you. Or how to convince you that you, too, will get through this hard time, that suicide doesn’t have to be your answer, your calling like it is to me.

How do I word this right?

Because, I should know that there is a way to word it incorrectly.

I know, I’ve been there.

I want to say so many things, I want to burst from the seams, and the silence of the night washes over me even as the music is paused and the beeping message hasn’t rung and maybe you’re trying to figure out what to say or what mask to keep in place, but I’m here to tell you that you don’t need that mask with me. You don’t need to hide and feel bad and terrible and like you want to die.

You CAN get better. Right now, there’s an illness inside of you like the dirt that’s on my gloves. One day you will find that you, too, are wearing gloves, rather than dipping into the ground with your bare hands–no, you too, will find your gloves.

You notice that I’m not talking. But I finally find myself forming words that make sense to me, that ring true, that feel good, that feel right. I can’t let you see the d–my darkness. Because it may be too soon for you right now. It may be too much, in the same way that your words were so familiar, so dark and shadowy, so….accurate, right, fitting.

It’s not that I’m too close to the situation–or, maybe it is.

I just want the best for you.

I want you to want the best for you.

And I realize that I am powerless.

I realize that I have to step away so you can properly breathe, even if it may feel like you’re breathing underwater right now, I promise to you that you will find the light again soon.

The darkness does not last forever.

Even when it tells you that it will, it won’t.

It lies.

It feels like the truth right now, and as Andrew Soloman once bravely said in his first TEDtalk: “But the truth lies.”

And that’s what your brain is doing to you right now.

It is lying.

Because you DO matter, to many, many people. You know this, inherently. You became aware of it yourself. You will never run out of people to tell you how much you mean to them, how much they care about you and how much they never want to see you suffer (and that doesn’t mean they don’t want to be there for you when you do struggle, rather, they WANT to know about it so they can try to help you in whatever form that you need in that moment). You can always grow your roots deeper into the soil, to form connections with more people and more things and learn about the world around you while you come into your own as a young person.

Because YOU are important. Because you are loved. Because you are cared about. Because you have friends; and you are my friend.

I may not see you face to face in person. I may not truly know who you are as the person you walk around with outside of the text-based world.

And, really, does that even matter?

Because I know you for everything that you are, or maybe, I know myself for everything that I am.

To read your words left me speechless. I want to read them again but they’re still swirling in my mind from the last time. They’re in me now, a part of the puzzle, your story interlocking with mine.

I just, I just want you to know that I hope you don’t have to go through all the things I have to enter into recovery and receive the help that you need and deserve. Because you deserve to smile and be happy and live a happy life alongside whatever may ail you. You are so talented. In so, so, so many ways.

And I want you to know this. More than anything, I want you to know this. And I want you to be okay. I want you to know that you can reach out to me if you need me. When, you need me. I want to be a support to you. I want to help you.

I want to help me.

Diary, I’ve been thinking about you. I’ve missed you. And I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been struggling so deeply–and for so long.

I hope this is your start of the road to getting better, or at least better than how you felt on that fateful day in November. Because it DOES get better than this.

 

Please, please.

Please, believe that it does, that it will.

I love you, my diary. I am always a text, Skype or phone call away. You can reach out to me. And I can reach out to you. And I can be okay, too.

❤ ❤ ❤