shutting off.

Now Playing: In My Place by Coldplay (if you go, leave me down here on my own, then I'll wait for you)

I can feel myself shutting off.

I never understood why people weren't open about how they were feeling. I never saw anything wrong or shameful about being so deliriously happy you just want to drown everyone you meet in a million hugs and kisses. Or being so blind with rage you can't think, can't breathe, can't speak. I've never seen anything wrong with the millions of emotions that have coursed through me through nearly seventeen years of life - euphoria, depression, joy, lust, pride, anger, jealousy, envy - the whole lot. It makes me human.

That's what I used to think, anyway. But for the past year I've gotten into the habit of saying I'm okay when I'm not, getting used to blowing up at little things and keeping the big things hidden from view. It's why I feel lonely, sometimes, even when I'm talking with friends. Because it feels like as every day goes by there are more and more things I absolutely have to tell them but will never breathe a word about. And it's building up inside me, a solid mess of lies and hurts. So many things that I can't solve by myself, but I keep convincing myself to try. And I do, I try really hard. Somewhere in my head the remnants of my rebellious childhood remain, a seven year old self telling me to get the fuck on with life and deal with whatever shit flies my way. Every day sometimes feels like a struggle...not to feel happy, because the majority of the time I'm still happy bubbly me, but...to feel lighter. I'm weighed down by just being a person and all the problems that come with being human.

But I can't find it in me to get help. I'm not afraid of what people will think - the majority of people who know me have figured out I'm pretty messed up by now. I've just become such a private person about things, because I know that if you let someone in you've given them the chance to hurt you. I'm so tired of being hurt, of being let down, I can't let anyone in anymore. I just take what I can whilst forever being in fight or flight mode. I know I need to fully open up like I used to but at the same time I know I can't. I've spent seventeen years unconsciously building walls to protect myself and now I don't know how to knock them down.

I'm a proud sort of person, but not proud in the way that I'm too proud to ask for help. I'm proud in that the simple knowledge that I'm human and can't do everything by myself on my own is humiliating. Every day I dream of self sufficiency, but I feel like I'll never get there. My body doesn't co-operate and I constantly rely on other people to help me, to tow me along when my energy fails me. But my mind, my emotions...I thought I could be independent in that. But it turns out that my one strength is as weak as anything else about me. I'm forever at the whim of people, and of problems I can't solve.

But now I'm scared that I'll become one of those people who shuts off, who doesn't tell anyone anything, who sinks further and further into their own problems until it's impossible to dig them out, or worse, they become invisible and nobody sees them and they fade away unnoticed. I can feel myself shutting off, and I'm scared.