So many of us struggle every waking hour of every living day with mental illness and indescribable pain. We go through life, medicated or not, feeling as though our diagnosis is invalid. Our feelings can't be real. We must be overreacting or making it up, right?
Everyone comes back at us when we say anything about a bad day or a relapse. Someone else must have it worse. Everyone out there has it way worse than you. You must be selfish to think that your life is so bad that suicidal thoughts take over your conscious mind, or that maybe you have dreams of what it would be like if you were just never born. Right?
You open your mouth to vent to a trusted companion, but wait... They, too, had a bad day at work and obviously they don't want to hear you complain another moment about something so small in your day.
All these feelings, all those emotions, all of the thoughts just continue to fill your head. They begin to consume your entire being, and it becomes harder and harder to focus on any other task. All you wanted was to decompress. That would make it easier on you to concentrate, to accomplish the tasks and goals no matter how minuscule.
Instead, you go sit alone: in your room, in your car, somewhere quiet. It brings a sense of peace to the outside. But the inside still screams. It aches to be released, but you have nowhere to vocalize it. Another outlet is desired, but is not sufficient. You try and try every possible technique. Maybe it works for a little while. Journal writing, therapy, maybe even medication. The only issue is that no one can compare to the validation from a loved one.
This can be a form of abuse in relationships. It can break you down and make you feel unworthy of being a person and maybe like you are too broken.
All the scenarios you run through your mind on how to fix it, all end badly. It makes your illness worse, your pain grows. Every bit of your bad day weighs on you.
Instead, find an outlet that does satisfy that need. Find a person who will listen to you, do not give up on that. Everyone deserves some way to feel as though what they are going through hurts and to vent to someone about it.