When we are not honest with ourselves, we are causing our body harm. When we suppress our grief, we are essentially piling our feelings onto one another, making each heavier.
Too many nights I have laid in my bed all alone, exhausting my body by drowning it in tears. I have cried my mind to sleep more times than I could possibly count.
My mother has told my sister and I since day one that if we are sad, her doors are always open. I have seldom listened to her or taken her up on that offer. And each time that I shared my bed with grief instead of a human presence, it was like I was scraping a knife across my skin.
When I first became depressed, I lied to myself repeatedly. Tried to convince myself, even long after I realized that something inside me was not right, that I would be okay on my own. That I did not need my mom or Lex because one day, I would wake up in the morning and the dried tears would vanish. But they never quite did.
I prolonged my suffering and I hate myself for that. And at some point, my father’s death was not what was breaking my heart into pieces. It was my own fear.
So yesterday, after crying to myself for several minutes, I decided that I had to be brave and tell my mother. Part of me just wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep, but another knew that that was not the right thing to do. Not with my past struggle with depression and my father’s suicide. It is not fair to my mother or sister to lie to them by saying, “I’m fine,” when I know deep down that that is not the case.
A lie stands on one leg. The truth on two.
Benjamin Franklin
To be vulnerable is to be courageous. No one likes to fully expose their heartstrings.
We suffer when we shy away from confronting our demons. You cannot win a battle if you have not come to the realization that you are in one.
Dylan Levitt
We Got This 