I think the moment I realized I wasn't okay was when the pain I had been suppressing became so real I was expressing it through methods of serious self-destruction.

When I began to feel so numb serious things didn't phase me, and life-threatening things were merely experiences.

I think I realized there was a hole in my heart when I began to realize how much of it was missing.

How my heart couldn't take even the smallest of things.

One unkind person, one rude remark, and another piece seemed to be gone.

And I knew I lost myself the moment I looked in the mirror.

It wasn't that I didn't recognize myself, but that I didn't even want to look at the reflection staring back at me.

I think sometimes we give ourselves too much credit. We think we're unbreakable, invincible, and walls or earthly means will somehow protect us. People, familiar environments, work, reputations, or money will somehow come to our rescue when we need it to, but what about when they don't?

What happens when all the ignoring you've done comes back to bite you?

The pain you've suppressed.

The relationship you ruined.

The mistakes that turned to nightmares.

What happens when you're forced to acknowledge it?

Because as much as I'd like to think every bad thing that comes our way guarantees future strength and blessings, they don't.

Or that we're going to handle things well, or deal with things as we should.

To be honest I never fully understood the concept of suppressing pain.

How it could be done, how someone couldn't feel it or be forced to face it each day.

Until I found myself pushing through life for two years not listening to my pain, but rather adding to it.

Because it was much easier.

But what happens when the day finally comes,

the day the inevitable happens?

Where you physically and mentally break down, and have nowhere else to turn, or to hide?

When reality is in your face, and it's not going anywhere?

Closing your eyes won't make it any less real.

I was just a girl with a mask if I'm honest.

A painted smile.

Forcing bad behavior upon myself, so as not to have to encounter the realities of my heart.

In the mirror, I saw a troubled college student.

Experiencing many, many of the struggles most young girls face.

But on the inside, I was just a little girl.

That same little girl I had always been, and will always be.

Terrified of my actions as any young girl would be, but trapped inside the body of a badly behaved young woman.

I had trapped myself in a time capsule of my own, just to avoid pain.

Pain everyone feels.

But I was so determined not to.

Until my reality looked me straight in the eyes.

And I was told I hadn't dealt with the pain I had experienced two years ago.

That all that time I had dragged it along with me.

Time will not heal your wounds if you don't address them.