Dearest Therapist: There is nothing wrong with me. I don’t see what you see. I feel fine today… it must have been a dream. I don’t know why I ever told you anything at all. I have no problems, there’s nothing wrong with me. How could there possibly be? I am the perfect girl. Things like that don’t happen to girls like me. I have the perfect life, with the perfect kids, the perfect friends, the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect smile. There is no way I could have ever suffered something like that. I am not pathetic and sorry. Girls like me don’t have problems. Girls like me don’t feel pain. Girls like me have everything anyone could possibly wish for, and then some. There is nothing I cannot achieve. I am so sorry for wasting your time.*
WHAT ACHES TO BE SAID BUT WILL REMAIN HIDDEN BEHIND THE SMILE: I am not that perfect girl. My heart and soul have third degree burns that cannot be repaired. It hurts so much inside that at times it is unbearable and I cannot remain here, housed in this body. I hide behind a smile because all I have left is a small amount of pride and a whole bushel of stubborn will. My life is one big lie. No one will see me with my head in the toilet or the scars on my arms that were once covered with blood. No one will ever know that the perfect girl is not real. The reality of it all is way too difficult to divulge and much less complicated to conceal. Tonight I cry alone but when tomorrow comes I will once again live that ‘perfect life’… the life of no pain, the life of no shame, and the life with no fear. And you will never know that when the darkness falls, and I am once again alone, I will feel the pain I push away all day long. And I will lock myself in the bathroom and I will sob on the cold tile floor. But I will do it in the silence of my bathroom, alone, in the darkness.
**You will never know….because I will not speak...I am not allowed to speak.
I don’t have a problem. I am sorry I said anything at all. Look at me and you can tell…there is nothing wrong here. I am the perfect girl, living the perfect life.