No One Can Prepare You For Loneliness

Nobody prepares you for loneliness. Nobody prepares for feeling this emptiness, to the feeling of numbness. Nobody prepares you for this kind of pain, the kind of pain that is not too strong but it’s always present right in the center of your chest.

It’s like having someone pressing your heart all the time, sometimes really hard, other times in a gentle way. It’s a hollow pain. It’s as permanent as the thoughts. Oh, those thoughts. Those thoughts of never being enough: you’re never as good, as smart, as pretty, as fast, as nice, as kind.

You’re a mystery. You’re that person no one ever notices. Worst than that: you don’t even want to be noticed. You’re so used to being ignored, to be invisible, that when you find someone who sees you, you need to get away. To escape, to be able to disappear. You don’t want to be seen. But you can’t hide anymore. You’re no longer invisible, and you get scared. You’re scared because visible means vulnerable, and you don’t want to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable once was the reason you’re invisible now, and you can’t allow to be it again. You can’t allow to feel, to open up to someone again: it’s too dangerous. Too painful.

It’s terrifying, how we give our heart to people who don’t know how delicate it is what they’re holding. It’s scary, how they can play with something they know they can easily break, without thinking in the consequences. They don’t understand the pain of having your heart broken. The effort of having to pick up the pieces, one by one. How hard it is to try to put the pieces back together and then, how sad it’s to realize they no longer match; you’ll never be complete again, and your heart will never be nothing more than an attempt of heart. You end up crying at night, crying for those who broke you beyond repair and didn’t stay to help you fix the mess they caused. You find yourself pushing away those who offer you help to find the missing pieces.

I get it, you know? I understand what it’s like to feel broken beyond repair. I know what it’s like to feel so far away, in a place when no one can help you. I know what it’s like having to pick up the pieces of yourself; to realize that you no longer recognize the mess that you become. It’s scary to realize that people can break you in ways you never knew that were possible. Is not scary; it’s terrifying. People change you. They play you like if you were some kind of toy. And suddenly, they get bored. They need to move on and forget you in the way. You end up alone, waiting them to realize what they’ve done to you. You end up hoping they regret what they did, and then, you end up realizing they won’t. You end up feeling hopeless, alone in a vast ocean of tears, words unsaid and thoughts. And you shut down. Just like that. In a blink of an eye, you disappear into an enigma; you lock yourself in a box and throw the key as far away as you can, hoping nobody will find it.

It hurts. It hurts when you wake up in the morning, when you’re awake in the night, looking at the ceiling, rolling up in bed. It hurts when you shower, when you eat, when you read. It hurts all the time, in ways you cannot imagine. It hurts so much it frightens. Nobody prepares you for this, for feeling this shitty every single day of your life. Nobody prepares you for the overthinking, for the wildly loud mind; nobody prepares for the infinite thoughts of a mind that never shuts up; thoughts too painful, too scary, too loud. Nobody prepares you for the indifference of everybody around you, for their lack of patience, for their inability to understand.

I’m nothing. I feel worthless. I often feel like everything is too much. Sometimes I think maybe it is. I feel like I no longer know what is wrong or what is right. Often, I just feel like running away and leaving all behind. Maybe someday I will.