How do I?

How do I explain this feeling inside?

It is like you can physically feel the weight of it, weighing down on your shoulders.

Your body aches with trying to stand and present yourself to the outside world as normal.

The feeling of numbness and darkness, like the colour has just drained out from me.

My head skips from bursting and chaotic thoughts to plain nothingness.

I am overwhelmed by how I feel but I don’t know how I feel.

I flit from walking round like a zombie to being fragile and on the edge of tears.

How do I show them what it is like?

I don’t feel present, I feel like the world is just passing me by and I am just on the periphery

I am on the outside observing, in the shadows.

I feel like I just want to retreat, I don’t want to engage or speak to anyone

I am too exhausted to pretend that I am ok, to smile through it

There is some comfort in that solitude but sometimes the loneliness catches up with me.

I quite often want to be on my own, but there is a sense of hope when someone reaches out to you

Someone shows they care, even to just sit beside you in the shadows

How do I tell them what it is like?

I can’t just ‘snap out of it’ there isn’t a switch on our emotions like that

Our emotions can be so intense, so consuming and so compelling that it is impossible to cut them off

We feel so deeply that it takes time and a lot of inner strength to gain any control over them

We can learn to tame our anger and fears so it seems rational for others to say ‘get over it’

But they do not have a tangled black web around their heart, compressing it like poison ivy

They don’t have the black veil over the head which makes everything seem darker and monochrome

How do I get through this?

I need to latch on to the little glimmers of light which find their way through

I need to keep breathing, keep going, keep living

I need hope