This Is The Cold Hard Truth About Hiding Your Emotions From The World

I’m a glass bottle labeled “indestructible” these days. But it feels like the world is tossing me around and around anyways, seeing how much I can take before I shatter. Days are easy because I can smile and laugh and agree with things people say to me as they talk at me. I absorb their words and listen and nod, reply kindly. But on the inside I’m cracking, I feel like I could shatter at any moment.

The nights are worse because nobody is around, and so I’m left to lay here inside a safe haven I’ve created for myself, with the world poking at the seeping gaps in my sides, waiting for all of that salt water to erupt at any moment.

But I don’t dare tell anyone about this.

I don’t even consider typing the words out “I need you” because I don’t know if I’m overreacting and bending under all this stress, and I don’t want to hear the words “Toughen up” because it might finally cause those edges of me to come apart, and I won’t show anyone the ugly, tear-soaked parts of me that are less-pleasant to deal with compared to my dimply smile I give everyone.

What I’ve learned is that many will care when you speak but few will hear you when you’re quiet.

I’m quiet in the most dangerous way that nobody can tell; I speak hollow words only to struggle with every syllable and my insides creak with every puff of air my ribcage has to take for me to form a word. When did everyone start becoming so damn oblivious to others around them? Can’t they see I’m actually rotting from the inside out?

My anxiety has taken over me lately, but everyone will only ever choose to say “Me too” if I open up to them, or give me such a seemingly simple answer when they don’t know it feels like I’ve swallowed a gallon of acid on my insides, eating me from the stomach up.

But the worst part isn’t feeling like you’ve been run over every time you try to get through another hour of the day; the worst part is actually wanting to let your anxiety rule you, to give in, to give up, because it’d be so much easier because you’re tired, and you’re not sure if you can get kicked much more before you end up cutting someone with one of your edges you try so hard to keep tucked away…and you’re sick of trying to be gentle to the world while the world continues to be abusive in return.