My brain is riddled with holes. The structural matrix of my being is barely strong enough to resist a slight breeze. I require others to keep me together, because left to my own devices, I fall completely apart. Without you controlling me, I don’t know who I am or what to do.

So, sometimes I forget that I have this thing. Sometimes, life will be going so well that I forget that I’m sick. All it takes is a few good days, and for some reason, my brain thinks that I’m cured, that I’ll never have a bad day again, or if I do, it will feel different, and I’ll be able to rise above.

So I wonder, does God see only the fiftieth time that I’ve messed up that day? Does He hear my cries when my heart can’t take it anymore? Does He hold my dreams as tenderly as I do? Does He look at the efforts I expend to try and make the world a better place and smile? The same way I smile when I see my son doing the same?

I’m going to be honest. My life is a disastrous mess right now, mostly because of my poor coping strategies that I learned to cope as a child, or that soothe me in a weird, twisted way. Because we were taught by having love and abuse conflated that pain should be comforting.

I don’t know what your story is. What I know is that even if your trauma isn’t “as bad” as mine, I won’t hold it against you for having a more severe reaction than me. And I hope you can understand that even if my trauma isn’t as bad as yours and I still can’t keep it together like you, it’s not because I’m trying to take attention from your pain, or imply that people like us are incapable of healing. I don’t want to disrespect your trauma by appearing to complain about something that seems minor to you.

From deep in this wretched pit, I’m the most philosophical, because my mind has disconnected from my brain somewhat. My metaphysical musings and self-reflection on the nature and causes of this miserable existence of mine become as sharp as glass, while the rest of the world fades away into a manageable haze.

In our sunnier days, we might get involved in things that we think might make us feel better. But we can’t see into the future to know how we’ll actually feel when the time comes around. Something that we were excited about when we took it on suddenly looms terrifying. Why did we get ourselves into it? Instead of stressing about it today, we could just have the day off to sleep and not dream.

Surfacing

Honestly, I should make a list of all of the weird borderline moments I’ve had. With a lot of distance, they start to become almost funny. But my hope is that if you have these thoughts too, you’ll see that you’re not the only one, and even if it doesn’t make the feelings go away, you’ll feel a little less stupid for feeling that way.

I wanted to keep track of how I’ve been feeling throughout these endless cycles, and share with you ways of rising above and moving beyond these bricks that keep landing in our path. Ways of coping that allow us to live lives that we can be proud of, even if it’s just a quarter mile at a time. But I know what it’s like to sit there, knowing there are all sorts of things that need your attention, but those things are like bats beating their wings outside of your glass box.

Poverty keeps us waiting. Waiting in lines, waiting for applications to be approved, waiting to see a specialist who might be able to help. Waiting in droves, waiting forever, always with the high possibility that we’re just not bad off enough yet, and we must go back to the start and try again.