Dear J,

Truly amazing...even fascinating in a way...how much moods can change just with a simple realization. Feeling left out...it seems to be something I feel quite often. I would give examples...but that would just make people feel like I'm accusing them of wild things again. I don't like people...I just...can't find it in my heart to believe that someone loves me just for me, all of me, my faults, my past, everything. I know that this...delusion is of my own making, I know I bring this on myself. I don't know how to be social whether it is online or in person. I'm the one who throws in the witty comment from moment to moment and just stands there while conversations flow. I'm the one that hides in the shadows on my own world afraid to get close to someone for the fear that I will lose them. It's...really hard sometimes. Knowing that you're creating your own misery and delusions, but not being able to prevent or change the way you are. How could someone love that part of me? How could someone love the part of me that wraps my sanity in this paranoid state? I might be scared...I might just be a normal person who has seen too much heartbreak to risk it. I want to protect my glimmer of sanity, contentment and hope, I don't want to risk the waters of close relationships putting those flames out and all I could do was watch as I fell into darkness. I'm trying really hard now...I'm trying not to cry. Maybe I am better off alone just so those fires that keep me going on a day to day basis won't flicker out. I have to cling to them, I have to protect them, they are my life lines, they keep me alive. My joy, my dreams, that glimmer of light ahead of the seemingly endless tunnel. So small yet so beautiful and warming that you keep moving, stumbling, ripping skin and tears fall with blood to the ground. It's an endless struggle...just for that glimmer of hope, that light, that...pure contentment that people dream of. I know very well that I cannot make this journey on my own. My tunnel is wet and the wind blows and my little fires baring stay lit. I can only walk so far because I put all of strength into protecting them that I fall more than others, I bleed more than others, I cry more than others, because I refuse to let those standing on the sidelines help me. So afraid, always so afraid. I wish I understood my own words, for now, I only have the lump in my throat, the tears that won't fall and the enduring feeling...of just being...completely alone.