Agony
I very often suffer in silence. I keep it in until it physically shows on my face that I’ve been through pain. I keep at it until the silence starts making noise, and people realize they haven’t heard my voice in a long time. I keep it in until I realize I haven’t opened my mouth in a while.
I won’t say I’m great at masking my pain with a fake smile. I’m not the best at faking emotions. But I will say that, through that silence, many people who live with me day by day don’t notice a thing. And it’s not like I’m waiting for someone to notice. It doesn’t bother me. I actually hate it when someone asks me, “Are you okay?” because I feel an avalanche of emotions fall on me. Suddenly, I can’t hold back anymore, and my eyes start tearing up. Suddenly, I feel an itch at the back of my throat, and I lose my voice.
Despite that, the struggle that I hide will never compare to the pain I feel after being accused of not trying…
Imagine trying your hardest and putting your all into something, then not getting the result you deserve because of the injustice in life, and after all the pain you go through, you are told that you didn’t try hard enough.
Imagine yearning for validation, yearning for an “I’m proud of you” from someone you truly tried hard for, just to face their disappointment in the end.
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Repeated disappointment from people changes the lens through which you see yourself, and suddenly, you’re disappointed in yourself too. Although you are the only person who knows the blood, sweat, and tears you put into it, you feel unable to be proud of yourself because it was not enough.
Imagine anticipation building after you do something you think might finally make them proud, only for them to treat it with silence as if it were expected and shift focus to what you didn’t do, what you lack, what you failed, and what you didn’t perfect.
It gets to a point where, although you know you did your best, and although those who assess your achievement tell you that it is great, you can’t believe that you did enough. Because when you once believed it, you were called out for being too proud and selfish. You were told you were “feeling good about your failure because it is less miserable than others’.”
Being told that nothing you do is enough and that everything you do is a failure makes you never feel that any achievement is a big deal, even if it truly is. It is pure mental torture and manipulation.
Being accused of having no clear goal in life, of not being ambitious, of not trying as hard as you should, even though you’ve always known what you want, it just doesn’t match their expectations, and they burn you for it day by day. They kill all the ambitions you had. They take away everything you’ve enjoyed because they think that will push you onto the path that they want, but instead, it crushes your soul and makes your life cold and dark.
They put a steel case around your heart and lungs, and it feels like your lungs can’t expand and your heart can’t pump blood. It feels hard to breathe. It feels heavy on your chest. It feels like someone is gripping your throat. You’re slowly losing your breath, slowly fading. And the deeper you fall, the more they take away, thinking that blocking every escape will force you down their road, but instead, it only adds more weight to your chest, pushing you closer and closer to breaking every day.
It is not even about entertainment or pleasure anymore; it’s about survival. It is a basic human right to be able to breathe, to take a break, and not feel like you’re trapped under a sheet of ice, where every opening you find to breathe gets closed. To take a break without guilt, without the fear of disappointment that you know you’ll face no matter what you do. To feel safe and comfortable, instead of always being in survival mode, wishing for an escape, waiting for an escape.
