I can feel people getting sick of me, I know I’m being annoying. But I can’t stop talking about it, not even if I wanted to. I can’t just “get over it”.

Earlier this year, I went through a chain reaction of bad events. A long time has passed since these events, it’s been almost six months since the most recent bad thing happened. And yet, I’m still not over it. I rely a lot on my friends to help me because I can't do it alone, no one can. But their sympathy for me is wearing thin, and I understand. It’s exhausting to try and help someone who is a broken record, especially if in your mind the fix is easy, to simply just throw the record out. However, the fix isn’t that easy. A record player works by recording grooves in a record. A person who is a broken record works the same way. They can’t just “forget” the old grooves because they’re engrained in their memories.

I’ve done the same thing, I’m not guilt-free. I’ve gotten frustrated with a friend who is “a broken record”. I’ve stopped trying to help them because I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just “get better”, or at least seek the help they needed. And I’m sorry, I understand now. You truly don’t know what anyone is going through until you experience it yourself. You can’t even begin to judge them until you have lived through what they’re experiencing.

I go through periods where I feel like everyone hates me. It’s this weird paranoia, and it’s incredibly obsessive.

I made a lot of mistakes this year. I was very angry, hurt, and incredibly selfish. I don’t act like this anymore, but I feel like I still need to repent for my previous mistakes. It’s this shackle on my ankle, weighing me down. I walk around assuming people haven’t forgiven me yet because I haven’t forgiven myself. I’m constantly apologizing, constantly feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt, and constantly agonizing over what I say and how I say it. Most of the time, this is in my head, but that’s almost worse.

I can quiet other people by distancing myself from them. And I do that, I’ll ignore text messages and phone calls, I’ll delete numbers. And that helps for a little bit. But that voice never shuts up, because I can’t distance myself from my brain. It’s always there, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Maybe it’s not me they hate, maybe it’s that little voice. Maybe it’s not me they’re getting sick of, maybe it’s that little voice. And in a weird way, that’s incredibly reassuring.