For many years now, her world had been in black and white. She felt numb. She would smile with her friends but if anyone had bothered to look close enough they would have seen that behind that smile she was drowning.  She couldn’t breathe but nobody saw her struggle. Every morning she would put on a mask so no one would see how broken she was on the inside. Behind her beautiful eyes was an ocean of darkness that was killing her from the inside out. On the outside, her life seemed perfect. Which, I guess is why, she felt so alone; no one understood her, no one was there for her. Or at least that’s the way she felt.  She wasn’t necessarily sad, she didn’t cry because there had been some tragic event in her life. She simply didn’t feel anything at all. She could pretend to be happy, but the truth was; she just felt numb. Any emotions she had were shallow, just little drops of an entire ocean. She didn’t even remember what it felt like to feel the whole ocean. She was just there; drifting through life, wishing it would all just go away. She definitely didn’t hate herself, she just felt like she didn’t deserve to be happy.

When someone would ask her if she was ok she would think, “No. I’m broken, empty, f***ed up, crushed, a mess, falling to pieces, useless, and I don’t really have any motivation to do anything anymore. I don’t feel like wasting my energy on all the pointless day to day bullshit of life.  I don’t want to wake up anymore. I don’t want to get out of bed and I don’t want to keep trying. I don’t want to fail anymore. I just want to give up, to go away or disappear.  I’m falling apart and nobody knows, I have nobody to talk to and I can’t breathe and I want to scream but no one can hear me and I just want to die.” But instead she just said, “yeah I’m fine, just tired.” Then they would respond, “Maybe you should get some more sleep?” and she would nod and smile until they finally went away.

She was tired, but this kind of exhaustion wouldn’t go away after a power nap.  It was something deeper, something inherently present in the fibers of her skin and in the tendons in her eyes. She was fighting a war inside her head every day and she didn’t know if she wanted to win or loose the battle. For her, sleep wasn’t just sleep; it was an escape from the monsters in her mind. She was severely overwhelmed with everything. It came to a point that even small tasks made her feel like breaking down and crying. Everything was just too much for her. But she had learned to hide it behind her smiling mask and every morning she would put it on so she could face the world and every night she would take it off and cry herself to sleep.

She had become so used to the numbness in her heart and the black and white world she drifted through, that it was so overwhelming to her when she finally felt something, finally saw a sliver of color in her black and white world. She didn’t understand what was happening to her. When he asked her out, her whole world flipped upside down. Someone finally cared about her. She saw his beautiful green eyes light up and his pink smile grow huge when he saw her. She didn’t understand why it hurt so much to be so happy. She craved his company but hated it at the same time. He made her feel something and it hurt because she hadn’t felt it in so long. She was so scared to loose him that she pushed him away. She tried to ignore the emotion in her heart and didn’t look him in the eyes for fear of seeing his emerald eyes looking at her lovingly. She pushed him away because it scared her but he pushed back. He fought for her and she was so broken that when he pushed back she fell to pieces. She fell but he was there to catch her and put her back together and in that moment, she finally began to heal.

She thought about him all the time. She loved spending time with him because she felt like she could be herself. He had knocked down all her walls that she had spent years building so she could never be hurt again but somehow he made them crumble. No matter how hard she tried to keep them up; they fell without even putting up a fight.  And she loved every moment of it. He made her feel happy and wanted and she hadn’t felt that in so many years. He convinced her that he truly cared for her, that he truly enjoyed her company. But eventually he gave up on her too. He dropped her just like everyone else had.

But when he dropped her, it hurt so much worse this time. Because now, all the emotions that she had ignored for all those years; they were all rushing back. He had knocked down her walls just to attack when she was most vulnerable. Now, she felt all the emotions much deeper than she had in a very long time. And so, when he broke her, she felt it with every cell in her body. He had started to heal her, just to drop her again. But this time, she shattered. And she had already been so fragile, that she didn’t know if she would ever be whole again. She didn’t know how to deal with these emotions because she hadn’t felt them in so long. She hurt all over and didn’t know how to put herself back together. She would remember all the fun times they had together, and how good it felt to be with him. She thought about him all the time and that just made it hurt worse. She didn’t know how to forget, how to move on. She didn’t know if she could survive this time.

But eventually she did. She re-built the walls and put herself back together. She pushed all her emotions away; she drained the whole ocean so she didn’t have to feel it any more.  She eventually did survive the only way she knew how: by not feeling anything anymore. In time she pushed aside her feelings because that was the only way she could exist. She promised she would never let anyone else break down her walls ever again. She vowed to never trust anyone else with her heart ever again; because eventually they would all let her down. Sooner or later, everyone would drop her. She would never let herself be put through that ever again. She’d heard plenty of promises, and sometimes she would actually believe them, but push hard enough and sooner or later, they all proved to be empty

In the end, she just wanted to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who never supported her. Thank you to everyone who never loved her. Because they made her stronger. They taught her that she didn’t need the love of a man or the support of friends to get through. She was strong and independent and didn’t need anyone to help her along the way. They taught her that the world didn’t notice the quiet ones, the ones who suffer alone. Thank you to all those who never noticed her. Because now she knows to never count on anyone, never depend on anyone, and most of all; remember that you can’t trust anyone.