Overwhelming Burden

I spent my entire childhood wishing that I was older and now I understand this sucks. Growing up is never easy. We all have scars, we all have stories. Life’s strange. To a kid, time always drags, and then suddenly, I'm 20. Truly, teenage years are the best and worst times of my life. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting their battle too. Everyone can make you smile, but not all people can make you happy. We all have a simple hello to one another, but always ends up with a complicated goodbye.  

People always give reasons not to be there, but sometimes they are just stupid nonsense, and never ending excuses. But you know what’s funny? I have grown so close to people I thought I would never talk to. But, I've drifted away from people who I thought I would be together forever. The thing is, people don’t know how to talk to each other anymore.

If we all understood that everyone has their own battles to fight, insecurities to face, loves to contend and goals to attain, the world would be a gentler place. Just because someone comes off strong, doesn't mean he didn't fall asleep crying. And even though he acts like nothing’s wrong, maybe he’s just really good at lying. You know why it’s hard to be happy most of the time? Because it’s difficult to let go of the things that make you sad. Many times some of us are just trying to get through the day, without falling apart because it’s hard to breathe when you’re standing on your own.

I’m always torn between wanting to tell my story to everyone and let them know exactly what is in my head or keeping it to myself. The problem is being outwardly unhappy and consistently so pushes people away, no matter if they say they’re always there to listen, there is only so much my best friends can listen to. 

On the other hand, to pretend that everything is fine is to poison yourself from the inside out, is to ignore who I am and lose myself. So which is better? To have friends that think I am melodramatic, seeking attention, and pessimistic or to drown in my own mind? I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the Earth, then I ask myself the same question. I just kind of wish none of it ever happened. 

It’s funny because when I do something right, no one remembers. But when I do something wrong, no one forgets.

Almost everyone has that smallest of faith and hope that one day they would open their eyes and it would all come true, that things would get better. At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don’t really expect it.

What if this time, I don’t say hi first? What if this time, I don’t text my friends back? What if this time, I leave my friends wondering? Yeah, what if this time, they are the one left feeling completely screwed over? I don’t wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone, because having them pushing me away, they pushed me to someone else.

Some days, I would wake up feeling great, full of freedom and possibility. But I haven’t had one of those days in a long time, maybe ever. Perhaps, sometimes I’m so blinded by everything going on around me because I’m so caught up with what’s inside me. I can’t go back, no matter how badly I want to.

I find it so hard to come to terms with the fact that life goes on. Tragedy happens, but does life really goes on? The world doesn't stop spinning, so I guess so. But there is something so insensitive about that idea to me. The world should stop spinning for a bit for those who can’t keep up and need some time to rest in calm serenity. I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we will never know most of them. Sometimes, we forget who we really are. Sometimes, we don’t say what we mean in fear of being different. 

What I want more than anything is for people to wrap their arms around me and pretend none of this ever happened. They will say that I have changed only because I have stopped living life their way.

I thought, if I am trapped between my feelings and what other people think what is right, always go for whatever makes me happy. Unless, I want everybody to be happy except myself. Love me when I least deserve it because that’s when I really need it.

As I grow up, I learnt that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let us down probably will and I will never know how strong I am, until being strong is the only choice I have.

Sometimes I feel like giving up. I've lost most of the people I've ever cared about, lost the only family I ever knew, lost my one chance at happily ever after. “I can’t do this anymore, it hurts too much.” I thought. I can’t keep living like this, like I am going through a waking death. Sometimes I asked, “Why does life keep teaching me lessons I am not interested in? I have no desire to learn.”

Isn't it sad when I get hurt so much, I can finally say “I am used to it…” I don't know if I'm getting better or just used to the pain. I know it seems like I'm this strong person who can get though anything, but inside I'm fragile. I've had so many things thrown at me, and each one has only made a crack. What I'm afraid of is shattering.

I am all alone. The house is quiet. The regrets sink in. I am always at a war of head vs. heart. I always wonder why is it so hard for me to tell others how I feel. Everyone told me that I deserve better, but no one is willing to give it to me. I don’t want to be forgotten when I am gone.

I am currently in this long and confusing process of figuring out who I am and what I want to do with my life but sometimes I wish I could run away and leave it all behind. One of the hardest parts in life is deciding whether to walk away, or try harder.

I don’t understand how I can smile all day long but cry myself to sleep at certain nights. How pictures never change but the people in them do. How my best friend can become my worst enemy, or how strange it is when my worst enemy turns into my best friend. How forever turns into a few short months that I would do almost anything to get back. How I can let go of something I once said I couldn't live without. How even though I know something is best for me, it just hurts the same. How the people who once wanted to spend every second with me, think a few minutes of their time is too much to spare. How people make promises despite knowing how common it is for promises to be broken. How people can erase me from their lives just because it’s easier than working things out. 

Sometimes, people just got to realise that a person who put up walls is not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.

Somehow, seeking God and talking to Him, even listening to music is my escape from all the mess in life. I told myself, “Don’t do something permanently stupid just because I am temporarily upset.” I realised that the older I get, the more rules they will make me follow, that’s when I realised I just got to keep living man.

It’s so weird, you know? How I always inevitably find myself wanting to run back to the ones I used to love, my dear friends, for some reason thinking it would work out differently the second time around. In the end, I will not remember the words of my enemies, but the silence of my friends. Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

I still thought that that I am happy, and yet why do I feel so lonely?  

You see, when we are born we see the world in an uncomplicated way. We know what we need, and we ask for it. We like nice people and we don’t like mean people. We sleep when we are tired, we eat when we are hungry, and we stop eating when we are full. As we grow older, we eat and drink to console ourselves, rather than addressing what’s bothering us. We overwork to avoid close relationships, rather than finding people we can trust to form strong bonds with. We hold grudges, play games, spend more than we make, want things we don’t need, and we get too far away from our basic human needs. In other words, we complicate things. As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just believe. It’s not that we don’t want to, but too much has happened that we just can’t. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.

I saw an article. A wise man sat in the audience and cracked a joke, everybody laughs like crazy. After a moment, he cracked the same joke again, less people laughed this time. He cracked the same joke again and again when there is no laughter in the crowd. He smiled and said, “You can’t laugh on the same joke again and again, then why do you keep crying on the same thing over and over again?” How true I thought.

We all fear rejection and want attention. Crave affection and dream of perfection. I often wonder if life is easier for other people or are they just better at faking it. If we never judge people, there wouldn’t be fakes. If everybody had a warm heart, there wouldn’t be players. If everybody told the truth, there wouldn’t be liars. If everybody was there for everybody, there wouldn’t be backstabbers. Just saying. The deepest people are the ones who've been hurt the most.

I believe that good things happen every day. I believe good things happen even when bad things happen. And I believe, on a happy day like today, we can still feel a little sad. 

People are always telling me to smile, like as if smiling is going to just take away all the hurt and pain. Well I've tried that I've tried hiding my sorrows and covering the sadness in smiles and what I've learned is that when it hurts this much inside your heart always has a way of showing it no matter how many masks you wear. There's a smile on my face but I don't know why it's there. I put it on to satisfy all the people that don't even care.

Every night before I go to sleep I lie on my bed and stare up at my blank walls. I try to imagine the future, but right now it's as blank as those walls. All I can see is a past that I barely recognize any more.

The worst kind of pain is when I am smiling just to stop the tears from falling. Trying to forget someone you love is, like trying to remember someone you never knew. People said I have changed so much. Well here’s there truth. I grew up. Easy as that. I stopped letting people push me around all the time. I learned that I can’t always be happy. I accepted reality. But it’s not getting any easier. Some days, it feels like I am disappearing, you know? Kind of like how people whom I cared about forgot about me. Now it feels like everyone else is too. And I am just here, constantly fading in and out of peoples’ lives. I want people to notice, when I am not around, because I think it is important to take the time to tell the people you love how much you love them while they can still hear you.

When a leaf falls from a tree, which is to blame? The tree for letting it go or, the ground that didn’t catch the leaf? Well, maybe it’s just the leaf, which grew tired of holding on. That’s life, isn’t it? Life do goes on within me, and without me.

Sometimes, I have to test some people. Not because I don’t trust them, but to see how much they will sacrifice for me. And sometimes I have to let them go, not because I suddenly stopped loving them, but to see if they love me enough to come back. I am not ignoring you; I am just waiting to see if you will make an effort. I guess the worst battle is between what I know and what I feel.

There are many things I would like to say to you all, but I don’t know how. I guess one of the hardest things in life is having words in my heart that I can’t utter.

Everyone is fighting their own battle, to be free from their past, to live in their present and to create their future. So have heart. Maybe the people who are the hardest to love are the ones who need it the most.

I believe that if you love someone, “Show it.” It’s better than “Telling it.” Want to try something new? Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to accompany you to the airport. The ones who will accompany you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people, they are just acquaintances. Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.  A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. It’s the friends you can call up at 4 am that matters. 

I always wonder if anyone thinks of me while they are falling asleep, because I believe that no one should be taken for granted. If I treated you the way you treated me. You would hate me. Don’t say you miss me if you don’t even try to talk to me. Love is not just a feeling; it’s an effort it needs to be worked on every day. 

People ask me why it’s so hard to trust people, and I ask them why is it so hard to keep a promise? One day you will realise how much I was there for them when I am gone. Don’t say I didn't try, I guess they just never fully noticed. What they said hurt me, but they are too full of themselves to care because I love how everything is always my fault, never theirs. All I need is them needing me. If they can’t handle me at my worst, they don’t deserve me at my best. Real friends are people who stick with me through thick and thin. But I need to be careful to who I am opening up to. Only a few actually care, the rest are just curious.

Maybe friendships aren't meant to be saved. Maybe we are meant to spend a certain part of our lives with certain people then move on. There are so many things I want to get off my chest but I can’t. You know what; our small and silly conversations mean more to me than they ever know. I just say I will miss them. Sometimes I expect more from others because I would be willing to do that much for them. Sometimes, I think about my life and I just want to kind of bang my head into a wall. Guess sometimes I just need to escape reality, so here I am, I am trying.  

I am trying to forget the people who have hurt me by ignoring me. But I can’t. A part of me will always miss the times I had with them.  But everyone is loud and they care about nothing. I try so hard to shut the feelings out, but it’s difficult as it seems. Maybe sometimes people did not actually change. I just never knew who they really were. I guess everyone seems normal until I get to know them.

When life gets too heavy, sometimes I just need to stop everything and just breathe. I just want to be happy. I just feel like I should just stop thinking about it, you know, but I can’t. Now I am afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all. Sooner or later, some parts of us will go away. It is not easy to learn how to live with missing parts. 

Guess I have to stay strong. But how is it possible to feel so alone in a crowd full of people? But being alone and being lonely are two different things. It’s like I am both in the same things. Sometimes I also wish that people would pay more attention to my favourite songs. Because the lyrics they sing are words I am afraid to say. But for those who noticed, thanks for noticing me, when no one else did. The funny thing is, nobody ever really knows how much anybody else is hurting. We could be standing next to somebody who is completely broken and we wouldn’t even know it. Don’t take it too hard, it’s okay to be not okay at times.

While the world is fast asleep, I am up all alone at times; my mind buzzing with every random thought in the universe, and sometimes the thoughts will reach a standstill and my mind goes blank. I become more aware of the silence and it is during this moment that I realise how alone I am.

I come to an understanding that bad things are always going to happen in life. People will hurt me but I can’t use that as an excuse to hurt someone back, no matter how much I wish to, to let them feel what I am feeling. So this is my life. And I want then to know that I am both happy and sad, and I am still trying to figure out how that could be.

At times, its nights like these, when I wish it was pouring down outside so I could scream and cry out all the pain. I’ve seen so many people change, especially my friends. And often, they become the persons they said they will never be. I hope I cross their minds once in a while just so that I won’t feel pathetic for thinking of them all the time. Every day, I fight back the urge to text them or call them, telling myself that if they wanted to talk to me, they would. If they don’t understand my silence, how will they understand my words? Sometimes, I just need to run away, just to see who will come after me.

It sucks you know. When everything is doing fine then it all crashes again. And the worst part is, I really don’t want to try and put it all back together again but I have to. The more crap I go through, the more I want to be alone. Because you can never fully understand someone’s pain until you are the one who feels it. Do you know what’s hard about being too strong? Nobody might care to ask if you are too hurt and weak to go on. I act like I don’t care but deep inside, it hurts like hell.

Sometimes, I just feel kind of lost. I feel like everyone around me is going somewhere, doing something, and always with someone. Most of the times, I feel kind of alone. I kind of wish I had someone, you know? But I hate it when you act like I don’t exist. I guess a lot of people must have suddenly just stopped caring. But funny how life is too ironic to fully understand, because it takes sadness to know what happiness is, noise to appreciate silence and absence to value presence.

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experience. Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. So don’t go around telling me you know how it feels because you don’t. The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was and the present worse than it is.

Unless you have lived my life, don’t judge me because you don’t know, never have and never will know every little thing and detail about me. Now, I have so many masks I put on everyday that I realise that I no long know which one is real. I am still alive but I am barely breathing. The memories won’t seem to let me go.

I do a lot of thinking before I go to sleep. I play scenes in my head. I practice the things I want to say. I have endless “What Ifs.” I make plans for the next day. I think of all the people I miss. I think of all the people who have hurt me, and I ask myself a lot of questions.

I guess its sad when people you know become people you knew, when they can walk right past me like I was never a big part of their life. How I used to be able to talk to them for hours and how now, they can barely even look at me and chat with me for a moment.

I feel like now, I should come with a warning label: “If you don’t want to stick around in my life, then don’t even bother introducing yourself. I can’t get hurt anymore.” I don’t know what people want from me. I tried so hard to be nice, to be kind, and to be helpful and no one appreciates me. 

Then I tried so hard to dress even nicer, do whatever I can to look good and no one appreciates me also. It’s like when they see me; they don’t even want to talk to me. I just don’t know what they want from me. And if I just ignore everyone because of the way they treat me, they said I have changed and then they gossip about me. I don’t know man, what does everyone wants from me?

People asked me why I am so “Emo” when I update my status on Facebook but you know what? I just post what I feel on there, so in real life I can put on a smile. I really wish life went the way I want it to. I just want to be okay today.

I have a lot of things that I want to say, but I choose not to say them because who cares when I hurt? I asked, “Am I the only one in church today feeling so small because everybody seems so strong.”

Never underestimate the pain of a person because the truth is everyone is struggling.  It's just some people hide it better than others. Sometimes the pains too strong to bear...and life gets so hard that I just don't care. 

I feel so alone; I just sit and cry...every second I wish I could die. Then I start to think who would care...if one day they woke up-and I wasn't there. Sometimes I think it would be easier just to get a knife. 

Do you ever just get that feeling where you don't want to talk to anybody?  You don't want to smile and you don't want to fake being happy but at the same time you don't know exactly what is wrong either?

I don't know what to do, I'm crying at some nights. It would just be easier if I was out of sight.

I don't know what I want in life. I don't know what I want right now. All I know is that I'm hurting so much inside that it's eating me, and one day, there won't be any of me left. Suicide is human’s way of saying “I quit.”

I don’t know how I feel about anything anymore. My mind is in a complete mess. There’s a story behind every person. There’s a reason why they are the way they are. They aren’t just like that because they want to. Something in the past created them, and sometimes it is impossible to fix them. Never take someone’s feelings as a joke. You will never know how much it freaking hurts.

Is it more painful to cry when you can’t do something you wanted to, or when you can’t find what you want to do?  I am just sick of crying, tired of trying, yeah I am smiling, but inside I am dying.

I guess it’s true the people who act happiest and laugh the most in company are very often the loneliest people. It’s not that they are putting on a brave face, or pretending, it’s simple; lonely people are genuinely delighted to be with others. Those smile and laugh the most are the ones that are suffering the most. Because laughter isn't only the best medicine, it’s also the best disguise. I just can’t keep pretending. I’m fine, I’m just not happy. Sometimes the person who tries to keep everyone happy is the loneliest person, but I guess no one give a crap about it.

I feel like shit, but I will still smile because I would rather not talk about it. I guess I have tried so hard to be always the one salvaging the friendship, guess that’s the problem.  If you could read my mind, you would be in tears. Sometimes I hate that I can remember every little details about something so clearly. Sometimes I feel like I am not as strong as I thought I was. Sometimes I want to just vanish and never have to feel a thing. This is not fair, nothing is.

I really wish I could put all my thoughts in a jar. I think too much and thinking too much causes me to over think and analyse things I don’t want to deal with. It gets too much for me to handle and I panic. I shut myself down and go to war with myself. I’m tired, I’m sick of being tired. I don’t like who I am but I have to live with it. I don’t know what I am doing. 
I’m sick of feeling sad. 

So many people have left my life. So from now on, as soon as I meet someone new, I will be prepared for the worst. People keep telling me that they care, but they don’t seem to show it unless I get sick, die or become famous. I just wish people would listen as much as they talk. I wish things weren’t so confusing. I wish I liked myself. I wish I wasn’t so insecure. I wish my thoughts wouldn’t kill me. I wish I could just escape. Better yet, I wish I could disappear.

What’s on my mind? I am tired. I am tired of caring for people who don’t give a crap about me. I am tired waiting for a text or call that’s never going to come. I am tired of thinking things will be different. I am tired of putting forth 100% of an effort and only getting 25% in return. I am tired of let downs by the people who matter most to me. I am tired of making someone a priority when in reality I am just a number to them. I am tired of shitty friends who are never there for me. I am tired of self-centered people who only manipulate a situation from their own perspective, never even thinking about what someone else is going through. I am so tired of the same old bullshit over and over again.

Have you ever had to get through a day smiling at people, talking, as if everything were normal and okay, while all the time you felt like you were carrying a leaden weight of unhappiness inside you? I got hurt, really hurt. And sometimes when that happens, something inside me shuts off. And then I get hurt easily, and take a lot of things personally. I want to restart my life. Everybody is always so “fine”, but we are not. Sometimes, we are hurt and bruised and nearly completely shattered and this is not what one calls fine.

After my mother passed away, I feel so alone. My friends are leaving me because they don’t understand. They don’t understand that I can’t handle their problems or mine too. They see me at school and church, I smile and laugh, they assume everything’s okay, but it’s not. On top of that happy boy is someone who is trapped, lost, and alone, confused, scared, hurting, needy, and suicidal. I only wish they could see through the words, and see that I love them. I care for them so much. But they can’t.

I hate myself and my life because no one gets me, and so everyone is leaving, I'm alone, and I need saving. But no one wants to bother with me. Because they think I am useless. I’m only useless if they don’t try.

I say I’m fine, they believe it, I say I’m happy, they believe it, I say all these things, and I only wish that they could look me in the eyes and say, “Tell Me The Truth.” I wish they could see through these false words.

Going through this suffering, emotion pain and hurting inside. It hurts me so much, that you can’t see that I am hurting. I am so tired of pretending, that everything is okay, my tears are starting to show and my smile is fading away.

“I’ll be okay”, is that what you really want me to say?

What is depression really? Is there one concrete definition, or has the meaning loosened as our generation has continued its downhill descent? To me, depression is simply my life. I'm not suicidal. I'm not a cutter. I don't hate the world. I don't dress completely in black. I'm just sad. I've been sad for what feels like my entire life, but that's not true. I was happy once and I can vaguely remember what it felt like, but I can't touch it. I can't get that happiness back, I don't know how. That's what depression is to me, knowing what happiness is, but never being able to touch it, to feel it.

One of the worst feelings in the world is loneliness. Sitting in the dark by yourself in the wee hours of the night gently crying. Nobody knows what's going on with me. How could anybody realize what's happening? Everybody I know is resting peacefully in their bed waiting the new day tomorrow. But for me, there's no difference in the days. They pass monotonously. And before I know it, it's all gone.

I guess I have gotten used to being invisible to the people around me. But don’t worry; I am invisible to the whole world too. The reason why I don’t share my problems to others is because after I had told them, they just don’t know how to respond or they just shove the problem aside, and they go “Hey c’mon, cheer up.”

I really really wish, sometimes when I say “I’m okay”, I want someone to look me in the eyes, and say “I know you are not.” The only thing worse than being hated is being ignored. At least when they hate you they treat you like you exist. 

Sometimes I feel like nobody has held me down and forced me to cry or made me hug them, or seen to the inside of me. I just say 'oh I'm fine' and walk away. Nobody's ever said to me 'no, you're not'.

But it’s ironic because that's how I have to live my life. I smile on the outside, and everyone thinks I'm doing fine but I'm always dying inside, always one step away from the edge you know? Just because some people don't cry, doesn't mean they're not suffering.

No one can see the pain what I hide, they're happy for me to keep it inside, my fear is my own; they don't want to know. Why should I involve them; why should it show. In reality, I'm slowly losing my mind. Underneath the guise of smile, gradually I'm dying inside. Friends ask me how I feel and I lie convincingly. Because I don’t want to reveal the fact that I'm suffering. So I wear my disguise till I go home at night and turn down all the lights and then I break down and cry.

It's an interesting feeling, really, to scroll through all the numbers in your phone, and realize that there is no one who will understand. This isn't a perfect world. People do get hurt. I smile when I feel like crying. I act like I'm okay, when I'm falling apart inside. And I try to let go, I try to move on, because I know there's nothing else I could do.

Sometimes I feel like no one cares. Sometimes I feel like no one is there. Sometimes I want to kill myself. Sometimes I think I need some help. Sometimes I feel like I'm alone. Sometimes I'm in an empty zone. Sometimes I feel like I'm not alive. Sometimes I wonder if I'm deprived. Sometimes I think the world should end. Sometimes I think I have no friends. Sometimes I want to make them see that, sometimes I wish I wasn't me...

I went home at night and cried for hours at some days because so many people in my life expecting me to be a certain way was too much pressure, as if I'd been held against a wall and interrogated for hours, asked questions I couldn't quite answer any longer.

I like to day dream, because for a couple of minutes, I have the life I wish I had, but then I open my eyes to reality. I wish that for once, everything could fall into place in my life like it does in everyone else.