You Couldn’t Save Me From Myself, But Thank You For Trying

It’s the text, “what’s wrong.” And you don’t have a proper answer to it.
It’s the phone call late at night as you hold back tears.
It’s standing in a crowded bar and you’re overcome with this wave of loneliness so you reach for another drink, trying to feel better.
It’s being on your knees in a bathroom stall as tears stream down your face because of the many things you can’t control in life: what you eat, how much and how to get rid of it is something you can.
It’s the over thinking and anxiety that keeps you tossing and turning.
It’s looking around at others and thinking why can’t I be normal for one minute.
It’s looking at your reflection and wishing you saw someone worthwhile looking back at you. Wishing you could love yourself the way others do.
But you wipe your tears. Go to sleep if you can. Then you begin another day and those moments just become another in the long stream of battles no one but your close friends know you fight.

Dear Friends,

I look at you all and see guardian angels in each of you. I don’t mean to be a burden and I don’t like when you worry but on those really bad days, it’s you that saves me. Some days are good. In fact, most days are good. To anyone on the outside I am the happiest person. I joke and I smile and I can have the whole room laughing with my one liners. But that’s the side I want the world to see.

I don’t want them to know me the way you do. I don’t want them to see the version of myself where black makeup runs long down my face and I fall to my knees in a scream. I don’t want them to see the person who cries themselves to sleep. I don’t want them to hear the voice inside my own head that says “I hate you and your worthless.” I don’t want them to know the side of me that worries until I’m sick. I don’t want them to know the version of me who throws themselves at every guy and wakes up not even knowing his name.

We all have parts of ourselves we keep hidden from the world around us. We build up these walls keeping the bad parts of ourselves in the confine of these sturdy walls. We don’t want them to get out. But every once in a while you come across someone or a few people who choose to enter. You reject them at first pushing them away because the only thing worse than letting someone in is letting someone in and watching them leave because they can’t handle it. You’ve become a burden messing up the peace in their life. That’s the worst feeling ever.

But every once in a while you find someone who stays. You find someone who understands you aren’t this monster you so believe you are. Every once in a while you find someone who brings out a light in you and says none of us are perfect. But I love you, anyway.

I thank you for loving me. I thank you for standing by me. But most of all I thank you for saving me every day from the demons that dance in my mind. Thank you for saving me from myself.

I hope one day I can love myself the way you love me. But more than that I hope I can find someone who loves me the way you do.

They say you gotta love yourself before anyone else can but I think the only thing you have to do is hang onto to the people who love you and if you can, love them so deeply they feel it too. Love them so much that maybe they can teach you to love yourself the way you deserve.