I feel numb, stuck, trapped
My insecurities get worse each day
I miss my extroverted self
I don't know where I've gone?

I'm existing;  not living
I'm not unhappy, I am not sad
I'm apathetic : neither here nor there

No movement,  nothing changes
Yet my life, my home, myself ...
Have changed beyond recognition

I am using this nothingness to heal
Educate, restore, fix, mend
In the stillness, I find my soul
My brain refuses to acknowledge it

Mindset is in quandary,  undecided
Body is aging before my own eyes
Soul is vulnerable , yet open
Honesty is blunt, uncomfortable for some, but necessary

Old friends question and probe
New friends acquired along the road
Baggage weighs heavy
I can not put it down

These are the ramblings of the mentally unwell
Emotionally unstable, is my label
I wear it well: you really couldn't tell
Unless you are reading this

I'll pretend and disguise the panic in my eyes
Censor my language, no triggers spoken
Not to alarm, not to self harm
Just keep quiet, be good, continue to be misunderstood

I'd rather be afraid
Of what I'm afraid of
And not myself.

I'd rather fear
The weather and rain
And the thunder and the lightning,
Than fear something about myself
That I cannot fix.

But I'm labelled
Mentally ill
I'm labelled
A psychopath
I'm told I'm not well,

But this is the best I've been in years.

And I'm so afraid
I'm not the best I can be
But I'm getting better
In the only ways I know how.

Working harder at coping skills,
Falling asleep when I don't want to,
Waking up in general,
Wearing presentable clothes.

I'll be up-ing my medication
On Friday,
Because I need to be better,
I need to be stronger.

I need to be the very best
I can possibly be
For you,
For us,
For our future.

And I'm so afraid of the rain,
But I'd rather be afraid of the rain
Than afraid of myself.

I have learned that solitude is a company all by itself.
My emptiness has grown to fill rooms
The sadness on the back of my tongue leaves an aftertaste like a bitter lover.
The day i learned my depression takes up more room than me,
We became friendly.
With a mental illness bigger than the space you carry it in
You learn a lot about how to shrink yourself into something more convenient,
As if your mere existence speaks volumes too many.
Solitude becomes more familiar the longer you spend with it.
And that Solitude has become as familiar as the warm lover on the other side of your bed.
Unzip your skin and step out
to make more room for the anxiety to fit comfortably.
youll leave a bag of skin and bones and misery on the floor.
my mental illness doesnt feel like a hovering shadow,
it feels more like an extra piece of my brain that the doctors overlooked.
tell me again that im just tired,
im just lazy,
im just unmotivated.
id try to draw you a map of my mind but lately its been just static.
maybe it isnt the solitude ive grown used to,
maybe its my elephant in the room,
maybe its the never ending presence of my mental illness in the room,
my overwhelming need to no longer exist in the room.

Let's start off with saying that I want this spiraling descent
Into the destruction of my carefully constructed facade of calm
To stop.

I want to see your colors,
Though that won't happen for another two weeks.

And I want to feel your hands in mine,
And I want to feel your arms around me,
And I want to cry.
I want to cry and listen to your heartbeat
As it calms me.

I want to hear your voice,
And I want to look into your eyes,
And I want to tell you that I love you
And I want you to tell me
That you love me
Because I know
You love me,

Deep down inside this descent into madness
Caused by the change in the weather
And coping with triggers,
I know you love me.

I know with the very center of my being,
That the whole epitome of  this whole thing
Is that I love you
And you love me.

I want to flood your face with kisses,
And I want to run my hands through your hair,
And I want to be yours,
So wholly and completely and entirely.

And I am. No matter what.
I want to be yours
And I am.

I've had always built up
Since I can remember,
And you just walked in,
As a child
And started tearing things down.

And I was so mad
And so relieved,
And then there was
Nothing.

And here you are again,
And you just walked right through
Every stone and steel wall I built up,
And I watch as they all crack and collapse
To the ground
With each footstep you take towards me.

And I have never been more angry,
And I have never been more relieved.

I worked so hard
To keep everyone at bay
But you just ignored
It all
And I couldn't help
But join in
In the destruction process
Of tearing down my  walls
To show  you every part of me
And please
Just don't make me regret
Tearing them down.

To you,
I am vulnerable
I am raw,
And I trust that you will
Take hold of me in a gentle embrace,
And that your love is true.
I trust that your love is true.

I built so many walls,
But your love is so stubborn and determined,
That you knocked them all down.

And I'm scared of the cold of the wind,
But with your arms around me,
I don't think that walls are really
All that needed.

I don't know
Who I was meant to be.

I don't know
Who they want me to be.
I have no idea
What I'm supposed
To be.

But I have learned,
That there is no use
Trying to be
Who they want me to be,
And there is no use
In living with "supposed to be's"

I have a new scar over my heart,
And while it can't be taken back
And it still hurts a little bit,
There's nothing I can do to mend it.

I have learned
That I am worth so much more
Than my scars.

These scars and these pains
Are parts of me that must be loved
Just like the rest of me.

And I have learned,
That you love me,
Scars and all.

Move over, move over,
I tell the devil on my shoulder.
There's no room for you here,
There's no room for you anywhere.

Move over, move over,
I tell the devil on my shoulder.
I won't listen to you,
I never listened to you.

I refuse to listen
To the lies,
And I'd rather focus
On the lights inside his eyes.

Move over, move over,
I tell the angel on my shoulder.
You won't want to see this,
You won't want to see what we've become.

Move over, move over,
I tell the angel on my shoulder.
"Don't fret, dear."
She whispers so softly,
"I am always here."

There's no more room,
For the devil on my shoulder,
With the weight of the world there instead.
I'd rather be weighed down
A little extra,
By doing some good,
Than be weighed down
By my own agenda.

The devil on my shoulder
Has packed up his bags and left,
Because I'm making room
To take up some of that burden
You bury yourself with.
You can't do everything alone,
And neither can I.
But together,
I think it'll get done
Pretty smoothly.

Move over, move over,
I tell the devil on my shoulder.

Do you even know
How long I waited
For you?

Picking petals off roses
"We'll see each other again; We'll never see each other again."
I don't even like roses,
But when sitting in a ****** dress,
In a pool of rose petals,
You get to thinking.

White sheets
And the smell of
Warmth and stars,
I dreamnt of you
Rescuing me,
And I would sit in class
And daydream
Of a hero.

But I had to save myself,
But I couldn't escape
Myself.

And after saving
Myself
Yet again,
I found you.

And all that wishing
And wondering
And hoping
And dreaming,
Wasn't a complete lost cause.

And now you're here,
So completely and finally,
And I have no idea what to do,
But to fly with you.

And I'm scared and skittish,
But I'll take off and soar,
Keeping the thrill of my delight
To a dull roar.

On a night where my teeth were bloodied,
I went to sleep and my dreams were
So sweet,
Because I met you there
And for some reason
I knew it was all or nothing.

Depression and anxiety had completely taken over my life at the age of 19. At 19, I was completely done with life. I was ready to die. I was ready to leave all the friendships I had ever known and all the family I had ever learnt to love. I want to share my story with you, so you know that you do not have to do this alone.

My struggles started at the age of 15, when I had gone through somewhat a traumatic incident in high school. I went from being jovial, full of life, bright and brilliant to quiet, self-hating and isolated. At this point of time, I had heard of the term depression but didn't think it was what I was experiencing. I told myself that it was just PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder; and it would be gone in no time at all. The incident that had altered my personality never seemed to go away, but I drowned myself in books as I was about to sit for one of the two major exams I had to face in high school. I got through it with flying colors and my parents were extremely proud of me.

Time went on and things got better, I had forgotten about the ordeal; not completely - but definitely progressively. I was never again the old, happy me. My parents assumed it was me growing up - and so did I. Then, I lost my grandfather.

I spent the 3 month break I had before starting college staying with my grandmother. It was lovely, I spent my time lazing around and talking to her about her past and she enjoyed telling me stories of how she grew up. The loss of my grandfather still feels unreal. There are days I'd tell my cousins or my family that I can't believe it's been over a year that he's left us all. I think death leaves behind a void that time doesn't really heal - time doesn't heal all wounds, just the wounds you choose to nurse.

Then, I started college. Things were alright for the first couple of months and then, everything started going downhill. I was no longer interested in going for classes, and all I wanted to do was sleep, really. I wasn't eating -  I could go two days without a single sip of water and my sleep schedule was altered terribly. I spent my afternoons and evenings asleep and would be wide awake from 10 at night to 4 in the morning. The world that I had built was falling apart and I could not piece it back together. I was in so much of mental pain that I resorted to self-harming. I would sit in the shower and cry for hours sometimes, praying that my sadness would go away and everything would return to the way it was. I could no longer write poems, or read. I didn't want to go out and I wanted to do everything in my power to be dead.

Not long later, I started counting on alcohol and cigarettes to get me through my days. I would find comfort for nothing more than a night and then find myself back to square one - alone, hurting, upset, tired. I hadn't felt anything like that and thought that I was just being lazy, but my mind knew it was more than just that. My results deteriorated and I was forced to open up to the lecturer who was in charge of the Student Council. I joined the Student Council because I was terrible at making friends - I sat through two semesters in college and had held less than 10 conversations with my classmates. I remember having nightmares at night when my lecturer said that we had to pair up in groups of 4 for every lab session. I was terrified at the very idea of having to talk to 3 strangers for one whole hour - I didn't show up for any lab sessions that semester.

My lecturer suggested that I see the college psychologist. I met her once and she was pretty straightforward - what I was experiencing was depression and anxiety. She urged me to see a psychiatrist to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to understand fully the seriousness of my mental health. I was afraid and I could not do it. I didn't know how I was going to tell my parents that I was depressed - I wasn't able to get out of bed and I was crazy. I was crazy - or so I made myself believe. I was agitated - how could she tell me that? I was terribly devastated at the fact that once again - I had let my parents down.

I skipped therapy after that, only to find myself getting worse - day by day, week by week. I was terrified at the idea of depression and medication. At the age of 19, I had attempted suicide close to ten times. I would sit by the balcony of the apartment I was living in at weird hours of the morning and say my goodbyes in my head, and be too afraid to leap because my mum's face would flash in front of my eyes. I would take the blade and hold it to my wrists and say this is it, just a little deeper this time. The voices in my head grew louder and the rocks in my chest became heavier. I would think - maybe pesticide, maybe asphyxiation, maybe drowning. All these thoughts and yet, something was holding me back. Hope - perhaps?

There was literally no more order left in my life. I was in a terrible state when one of my friends had asked me to move in with her - fearing my safety. She made me breakfast, talked to me, made me take regular showers and planned dinner. I had the best friends in the world - to which I owe my life. They saved me; through God, through faith, through kindness, through understanding, through love, care and compassion. Then - it was rock bottom. I was on the edge of my life when I had no choice but to inform my parents.

They decided that I would return home. I will always remember that day. My best friends and I held hands on my bed - formed a prayer circle and prayed for my recovery. That very image still brings tears to my eyes. I came home and had no choice but to see a psychiatrist and this time, quitting wasn't an option. I was very quickly diagnosed and put on antidepressants. I go for psychotherapy once every two weeks. I wasn't able to leave my house for over a month but I have made some progress.  My shoulders feel lighter - I do not have to carry the weight of the world. I have given up smoking and drinking, recovery is my only goal.

At 19 years old, I was this close to death. At 19 years old, I survived the darkest days of my life. At 19 years old, I fought for my survival and made it out alive. I made it out alive. You may think a 19 year old has yet to see the world, and I may be too young to say anything at all. But always remember, you are never alone. Maybe you think your sadness will always be a part of you, maybe the voices will keep talking to you, maybe your nightmares will never stop. But you do not have to do this on your own.

Just today I returned from a vacation with my family - we really needed it. We went out to dinner and I saw probably the prettiest sunset in the world - it's on my Instagram account! Then, we decided to go shopping and I walked into a bookstore and flipped one of the self-help books and came across a quote that caught my attention - " it is better to light one candle, than to curse at the dark".

I'd like to think that that was life's way of telling me that better days are coming and that; was my new beginning.

That was my sunset, that was my new beginning.

**I am a fighter, and I am worthy of life.

Don't let them see
You're hurting.

Reach out a little,
Ask for help,
But not too much.

Everything hurts,
But it's not a matter
Of mattering
It's matter
Of knowing you'll never
Be quite enough
For anyone.

Too distant a friend,
And when not withdrawn
Too clingy.
No in between.

Too troubled.
Too insecure.
Too much,
Just too much.

Don't ask for help.
Don't talk it out
Because you don't even know what's wrong,
Why have a support system
When you're breaking?

They'll leave anyway.

Close you eyes,
Hold your breathe,
You're in for something
Unexpected.

People might not help you
When you need it,
But they can't help you
If they don't know.

And they won't know
If you sew your mouth shut,
With "They'll leave anyway."

Take a risk,
Take a chance,
Tell a soul.
A kindred spirit
Will always
Hear it.