Dear Mental Illness

Dear Mental Illness,

Why do you always seem to creep up on me when I feel like things are falling into place? Are you unsettled when I start to smile? I wonder if you think I shouldn’t be happy. I wonder if you want to watch me suffer. Some days I wake up and it feels like something is crushing my chest. I roll out of bed and start my day. Do you wish I couldn’t get out of bed? I fight the urge to stay but the world is calling me. I go through the motions at work. I can hear the kids laughing but it doesn’t effect me because there you are. You’re burning my eyes with tears I refuse to let out. You never want to give me a day to feel happy. As the trees begin to change, I can feel more than before. Summers are usually when you vacation away from my mind. Sometimes I think you won’t return but here you are. You’re always there. I fight through your power with everything i’ve got but some days I fall short. Some of the days you get the best of me and on those days, I let you win. When you win I fight back more tears. I hear voices in my head saying this will never be over, you will always be sick. I roll over on my side while I lay in bed and I cry real tears. It doesn’t help. I tried to hide you for so long that I can’t cry most of the time, and when I do I feel weak. I feel like I’ve lost, but now I know it’s not the tears that make me feel that way. It’s the people who look down on me. The people who don’t believe I’m good enough because I have a war to fight each day. They don’t like how I behave even when I try. They call me a freak, I agree. Even when they say they love me they don’t listen. They don’t listen, I yell but they don’t hear me. I listen to my voice screaming in my head, why can’t anyone hear me? Can they see me? Can they see who I am behind the illness? I used to think I was a lot more. I used to think this was only a small piece of me but is that true? My in-laws don’t think I’m enough for their daughter, but they don’t even know me they only see you. Does anyone actually know me? My family pretends that ever since I got out of the hospital for the second time that all these demons are gone. I tell them they aren’t but they don’t hear me so I lie and say I’m fine. They think there is a cure for the beast inside but the truth is medication can only do so much. I swallow the handful of pills that don’t even work anymore, pretending that it’s all going to work out. I act like its going to go away but the truth is that it’s always there, it just depends how well I can hide it today. I try to stay strong for everyone but I never let them know when I need them to be strong for me. On these days I don’t feel like I deserve it anyway. My stomach hurts, but I force myself to eat. I don’t enjoy eating anything. I don’t enjoy anything, but I try. Why do you enjoy this? You give me flashbacks of things I never want to see again. You make me shake with discomfort and hate everything about myself. I never feel worthy enough to feel better. I beat myself up so I can feel something but it never works. You never let anything soothe me when you have your way with it. I hate you. I hate you more than anything in the world. I wish I could be better than you, or stronger. I act like I can take it but I can’t anymore. I’ve had enough of you. Someday I wish it would be possible to beat you, but I know I never will. You will always be a part of me mental illness, and someday I hope you let people get to know me, because id rather be mentally ill than lonely.