To Everyone Carrying Their Burdens In Silence

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cck7KHuuswc/

we didn’t plan to become closed off to the world, but a lot of us were taught that it’s safer to go through difficult seasons alone than to risk being vulnerable with the wrong people.

we learned this lesson the hard way — we asked for help, only to be judged and ridiculed. we poured into people who never truly appreciated us. we didn’t just stumble, we fell flat on our faces — because there was no shoulder left to lean on. we looked around for our support system and saw an empty room.

and as much as we don’t want to hold onto these parts of our stories, how could we ever forget how that felt?

healing is a difficult, frightening process. some days, we feel light. we can feel ourselves letting go of situations that used to trigger us. other days, we feel the weight of every burden that we’ve ever carried bearing down on our shoulders and our spirits. it’s heavy.

we wake up one day and decide that it’s better to be numb than to risk falling off of another emotional cliff. we decide to run from our feelings for another day, because it’s the only way we know how to keep moving. we decide that we’re better off pretending that everything is ok, even when it’s not.

and this is valid. we can’t snap our fingers and become the people we were before the trauma. we can’t pretend to be okay until we are okay. healing takes work. we need a lot of time, space, and grace to walk the path towards restoration and uncompromising self-acceptance. healing isn’t a destination, it’s a lifelong process — and i think we’ll all be better off acknowledging how hard it really is, while choosing to believe that it’s worth the effort.

[tweet screenshot; tweet by michell reads: “sending love to everyone who is carrying their burdens in silence. sending love to everyone who wants to be heard but is afraid to speak. sending love to everyone who’s ever felt alone in a room full of people.”]

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When I was in 3rd grade, I never planned on being closed off in life. But life happens.

I don’t get to get to tell people how to love me. I get to see how they love, and choose if I want to participate. And I can’t make people do right by me, but I can decide how often I choose to let them do me wrong.

I wasn’t always closed off. But after the experiences at the other place in question (and when I was younger)? It’s definitely the case. At the core, I have never felt safe for a long time since middle school, my sense of safety shattered because I simply couldn’t trust the people around me, and I had to fend for myself; my experiences literally altered my view of the world.

I asked for help on more than one occasion, to only be punished and made to feel worst. Many situations taught me that no one got me. It was better to suffer in silence, than to keep asking people that didn’t care and never cared in the first place. I fell down a lot, and was kicked down further by the administration.

Straight up, the people and organizations I cared for the most and poured the most into? Would not show up for me in the same way they showed up for others. Gave others a chance for deeper friendship than they gave me.

When you are down really bad, you find out who’s in your corner. The people I did the most for did not bat an eye for me, or even answer the phone (again, I want to point out that I do not do things to get things back, I just want to know if you have my back and a lot of times it wasn’t the case). People treat you based on how much they value you, and I did not want to see the cold hard truth. The friendships I wanted from them didn’t exist. Just because I saw them as friends doesn’t mean they saw me in the same way. I was someone for them to use and throw away like garbage at their very convenience.

I basically told myself if I make it out of this alive, I will never trust in the same way or be this fucking naïve and this much of an idiot again. I will never trust anyone with my finances this way ever again. I will pull myself up so high I will not need people like this ever again. (In the interest of not making this longer than it already is, this and a few bad breakups, and just other situations made me adopt protective love patterns.)

The reason why I voluntarily choose to still suffer in silence because I was taught and have plenty of examples that tell me that it’s safer to go through difficult seasons alone than to risk being vulnerable with the wrong people. Do I risk telling this person something knowing they could run around telling people at any moment? Or do I keep it to myself? Or tell the cats? I learned this the hard way. In my younger years, my so called classmates ganged up on me and bullied the crap out of me. My so called best friend(s), the people I was supposed to be safe with backstabbed me and turned everyone against me. Teachers allowed the behavior to happen to get back at my mom for not acting the way a black person to help. I asked for help from my up-ed school while dealing with the deaths of my friends, racism, and health issues just to get scholarships taken away and to be treated like garbage. I asked for help and to attempt to trust someone, just to be made fun of, talked about and lied on in court several times. I poured my heart into organizations that could give two f***s about me, only to see that they were hanging out and building closer bonds, without giving our friendship a chance (i.e. I was a token, there to say that they had a black friend publicly but when they hung out with their other white friends I did not exist. Off the record, I do not do things to get things, but I would like to know who has my back). Throughout many times in my life, when I looked for support, there was no one.

As I write this article, I’m reminded why asking for help has been harmful.

Of why I don’t like to be a burden. (I never was the sort to overwhelm someone anyways, if they are happy why rain on their parade. I understand that it’s not the healthiest to hold all that in, but I also feel that overloading that to anyone is unfair. Or to bombard your business during a wedding day. It’s not about me, and there’s a right time and wrong time to talk about things. People are busy with their own lives doing their own thing. )

Truth be told, pain drives people away.

Truth be told, there’s been plenty of times when I was in a room full of people, and I felt isolated and I just didn’t vibe with the people in the room. When I was alone in nature, I felt fuller than the times I was around people.

Just off record, viewing your Instagram story is one thing, but if any of these people never reach out? No, most of the time they don’t reach out to ask if you are ok. I occasionally get checked on by Steve Bello and Acshettle. So out of 100s of people, only 2 of them reach out?

And sadly, some people are happy to hear of your problems. Instead of distinguishing and trying to figure out who’s trustworthy or not, I just go with what I know is the safest thing. Not tell anyone for a while if ever, maybe share a small secret (like hey my track has 500,000 streams on this alternative music page like bandcamp) and see if I hear something back.

I’m used to dealing with things on my own, and withdrawing whenever I need to. I’ve been handling things on my own for years, and this won’t change anytime soon.

It’s 2022 as I write this, but by the time you read this it will be 2023.

It’s 2023 🔥🙌

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