I am a lover of life, a romanticizer, a dreamer.. and yet, lately I feel lost.
I have always tried to walk with strength, to meet storms with grace,
to carry every battle alone and pretend the weight was feather-light.
In the past, I reached for help – to family, friends, the person I loved.
But their eyes closed when I needed to be seen. Some offered a handful of words and changed the subject. Others shamed me, taught me that silence was strength and that my pain should be kept in a locked box, hidden where it couldn’t inconvenience anyone. I learned to believe that asking for help was weakness. That my struggles were a burden. That I was too much.
It is exhausting to carry that kind of aloneness.
Eventually, I began to break my own rules. I started the work.
I stepped into the long, unsteady road of healing, a journey of rediscovering myself, and learning how to move forward without tearing myself apart.
Then came the diagnoses:
ADHD.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
C-PTSD.
Depression.
For years these ghosts had been living rent free in my house, rearranging the furniture in my mind. Now they had names. It was complicated to accept them and deeply, sharply validating. But knowing the names didn’t make them disappear. They still press into me, still tell me I’m broken, still remind me I measure my worth only by what I give to others.
I have been so good at abandoning myself.
Recently, with the chaos and storms of my life, I get lost in the darkest parts of my mind. I have found myself twisted into knots so tight I can barely breathe. The suffocating thoughts crawl in.. the kind that take root and whisper maybe it’s better to stop trying.
Suicidal ideation is not my plan, but it is my shadow.
The fear is not that I will step off the edge today, it’s the terror of the potential that I might reach that point one day.
And I love being alive too much to let that happen.
For years, I’ve kept these ghosts locked away inside of me, afraid of the disgust or the silence that might follow. It is a part of me I hate and a part of me I am deeply ashamed of.
So when I opened that door to someone new, I braced myself. I waited for the rejection. Instead, they met me with softness. They challenged my thoughts without cruelty. They offered resources. They gave me kindness without condition.
It was like sunlight hitting a locked room.
That one moment gave me the courage to reach out to a few others, to weave a small safety net from the hands of people who want to see me here.
And for the first time in a long time,
I don’t feel completely alone.
I am grateful for them.
I am grateful to still be here.
If you’ve been carrying your darkness alone,
I hope you know you are not too much.
Your existence is not a burden.
And letting someone see the truth of you
might just be the first step towards saving your own life.
The Art of Holding 
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