Walking around as a ghost

Have you ever felt alone, like truly alone? You could be in a room screaming and no one would hear, like you're completely invisible and yet visible at the same time, if so- then we might have something in common.

I guess people are so wrapped up in their own lives to notice the 'invisibles', they're often the one's that get labeled, depressed, anxious and even psycho,why? Because people wanted a way to explain something they didn't want to take time to understand. The thing is, those labels aren't real, they don't describe what that person is going through, they're simply scapegoats to try and say 'something is wrong' but those people aren't broken, they're just healing and often, they're alone in that healing. It can be like being stuck in your own freezing pond, with no warmth around, it follows you everywhere- like the sun shines, but it doesn't thaw you. Fish can swim by, but they don't speak your language so you look like this big strange enigma that they won't approach.

When I was a child, I was born into that freezing pond from the start, I was classed as 'difficult', it wasn't hard to be labelled that with an alcoholic and abusive mother, I wasn't difficult, I was neglected, abused in most ways and ignored, I wasn't heard and invisible from a young age, I was unwanted when born and essentially was born a ghost, I could swim through the invisible frozen pond searching for warmth but never find it. Other people couldn't see through the ice, but they would see what I allowed them to see. I called it a mask, like a beautiful flawless snowflake that I could mould into different shapes, I'd smile, make people laugh- mainly because I didn't want to see someone else hurting, but also to stop them seeing me hurting. To many, I was easy to get along with- despite the fact I never had any close friends, I was the one that many people came to for advice and yet no one could give me advice as that would mean putting a crack in the mask and I couldn't be bothered with, I didn't want pity or sympathy, I was past the point of caring if someone understood me, I let my heart turn to ice and embraced the cold.

The thing is about carrying around a lot of ice- it gets heavy. Wearing a mask works, until it doesn't, and when it didn't- I was dragged deeper and deeper into that pond, my body ached so much from the cold, I couldn't eat, I'd feel sick and cry and shake for no reason and then feel numb and dead, like the ghost realised it was dead and was just hovering there waiting to pass on. Suicide never worked, somehow it was like I became immune to death, I was never scared of it, quite often I'd wake up pissed off from a suicide attempt that I was still here, another day of gliding around. The funny thing is, when I was in that state, I looked around at the 'land of the living' and realised I could see everything for what it was, I'd see their masks too, I'd see their fake smiles, I'd see them crying behind laughs, I could see it, feel it to some extent. I realised something in depression, I was very much real living in a fake world and I couldn't be fake, I didn't value money as other people did, I didn't care for fake social relationships, I just didn't seem to allow myself to get attached, it was better that way, more freeing, sometimes colder and yet sometimes lonely, I wouldn't get attached as I couldn't be bothered with the hurt, but it also meant I didn't get close to people either. Even when I felt alive- I felt like a passing stranger in most people's lives, like I was helping them like a wanderer and just passing through.

One day it changed. I met a guy, despite dating and being married previously and having a kid. I met someone that I would grow to love and I had to fight and change the parts of me that would have stopped me loving and being with him. It wasn't easy I had to get out of that pond bit by bit, I reached for the sun and for a while, felt the heat, the sweet burn. I was so used to not getting close to people that I had to learn how to get close, chip away at the tower of ice around me to reveal bits of me and show vulnerability so he could see me. It wasn't always pretty and sometimes the ice came back like an unbreakable force but he stayed and came back twice after I kicked him out for a break as, during my lows, I didn't want him to see, those lows felt suffocating and heavy and his worry didn't help. Each time he came back- he never understood mental health or try to understand it so it was difficult, like screaming again without being heard, I get in the bath and cry under the water so he wouldn't see, it was a different kind of 'low', I started to miss the refreshing ice. It was hard and eventually, I felt lonelier and lower like I was trying to reach for this connection to him. He wasn't one to talk about his feeling, I'd push him away, do reckless things just so I could see he cared- like how can this one person that I truly love just not hear me or understand or communicate properly. How can he be blind and deaf to what's happening?

It took its toll and after almost 5 years, I watched him leave for the third and final time. All it taught me was that frozen pond helped me for so many years. I allowed myself out of it, I was open and showed vulnerability and loved and burned, yet he didn't understand. I could open my heart to him but it didn't work as the last time he left, it felt like it was ripped out as he walked away and didn't turn back. He would never understand the strength, the battle I had for so many years and funnily enough, he wouldn't care now- it was easy for him to move on. I use to see him as my anchor, a stability, but maybe that was me foreseeing how it would end, because that anchor wrapped tightly around me and dragged me back under.

I don't know anymore if I could be in a relationship again or trust someone, I tried it with everything I had. It burned, it froze, it drowned me and left me unable to breathe, I learned to master the elements, but not trust a man again.