I was driving, Virginia Beach to the North Carolina border and back. I had no idea where I was going, I just knew that I needed to keep going or my world was going to stop turning.

It started off as an errand run, that turned into a two hour car ride with the music turned up so loud, I couldn’t hear my thoughts telling me to swerve off of the road.

That’s how it always starts. A normal day, I’m out with my family or my boyfriend, getting lunch or shopping, and one minute we are laughing, joking, carrying on a normal conversation and the next minute – my thoughts are reminding me of how little I matter.

How I don’t matter to them, I don’t matter to anyone. How no matter what I try, it’s not enough. That the way I was being treated, was deserved, no matter how cruel.

And I’m sucked out of my own body, floating above everything that is going on, detached. Holding it in, makes it worse with the potential to erupt. And talking about it makes the people that you care about sad and blame themselves, when it’s not their fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.

Coping mechanisms are harder to come by because, In a way, you feel like you deserved to be punished for all of the sadness and negativity that you bring with you. No matter how much you self harm, smoke, or drink, the pain is always there, all it does is numb it for a little while. I’ve moved past that, or I’m trying to steer clear, and that’s why I grabbed my keys and left.

I should have spoke up, given you a call just to redirect my thoughts. I should have drove to you, climbed in your bed, and cried on your shoulder. I should have put my worries aside and told the truth.

But I was scared, I’m always scare, one time I’ll come crying to you and you won’t be home. I’ll call, crying like a blubbering mess, and you won’t answer. I’m scared, despite what you say, that one day I’ll wake up and I’ll truly be alone. I know that I wouldn’t be able to survive that. I wouldn’t be able to survive or fight without you.

So I drove.

Next time, I hope my road leads to you.

I’m sitting in the bottom of my shower, crying. It’s been a long time since I curled up and I wasn’t able to distinguish between the water trinkling down my face and my tears. ten…twenty…thirty mintues pass and the water will turn cold encouraging me to get out of the shower.

By then, the fog on my mirrors will uplift and I’ll have to look at my own face. Red, puffy, and a slight frown in place of where I usually display my fake smile. My throat is raw and scratchy, my nose stuffed. My head, clouded with thoughts weighing down on my mind.

What was it about me that made me feel this way? It wasn’t that I didn’t like my crooked teeth, or my bland brown hair. It was my nature. I didn’t like the fact that I would try so hard, to have no returned effort. I became too nice, too sweet. All I wanted was people to think highly of me, and I got what I asked for, but at the cost of my mental health.

I was someone, who asked for nothing, and gave everything in return.

And now I want to take it all back.

I’m not quite convinced that things get better. I think somethings will stay the same, and eventually, we will learn to let them bother us less or learn to ignore them. Which, I don’t think that I am okay with.

I’m depressed, that’s something that I would like to get better, but there are reasons that I am feeling this way. I’m not just randomly sad all of the time. These feelings are real, these feelings are valid and it’s not something that can go away over time.

Because I don’t think crying myself to sleep most nights, getting my feelings hurt over comments or “jokes”, not being stood up for, begging for attention, constantly being fussed at for one thing or another is me getting better. I think it’s making things a lot worse.

I’d love to be proved wrong but at this point, why do I even bother?

The way I see myself is, I hope, different than the way that others view me. For the past few months, I have not been quite sure who I am. Because in May, I broke off every little piece of me and now, I’m rebuilding with stronger parts. I’m lost and looking for a little guidance from my heart, who doesn’t always lead me in the right places.

Some times I get angry. I get frustrated over insults disguised as comments. I get mad at lack of communication. I get mad when I’m all alone. I’ll sit on my bed and wallow inside but all I want to do is get up and punch a wall a couple of times. As if a broken hand would make me less angry.

But mostly, I’m sad. I’m sad that I feel as if no change is occurring. I’m sad when I end up sitting in my room at night, alone. I’m sad when I’m surrounded by negative energy. And some times, I can’t explain why I’m sad, I just am.

Living inside of my head makes me not believe things. I don’t understand how people think or talk highly of me, I don’t get how my boyfriend loves me the way he does, and I’m unsure how my friends stick around in my life actually curious to how I’m doing. It makes things incredibly hard.

Do they actually know me? I’ll wonder. Maybe if they saw inside of my head they’d think differently. I’ll believe. Because I see someone who tries and fails, someone who tries to comfort people and says the wrong thing, someone who attempts to help and makes things worse, I see a fat ugly version of a girl in my reflection, I don’t think my level of intelligence is considered smart just fortunate enough to know what’s going on, and I see an enemy inside. It’s almost as if there is a mask that I’m wearing for the public, that when I’m within the safety of my own home, I take it off and reveal the real me.

Now, I know all of those awful things about me aren’t true, and I know this because I’ve listened to the people who love me in life tell me otherwise. It’s like I’m wearing distorted glasses when I look at me, distorted glasses that only see the negative. It’s taken me a while, but I’ve begun to view myself in other people’s eyes.

I’m a work in progress and I can only hope that things go up from here. But I’m going to get angry and want to break things, I’ll get sad and want to cry sometimes, I’ll yell when it’s uncalled for, I’ll apologize when I need too, and I’ll keep going until the way I see myself is the way that I truly am.

I’ve been in this rut lately. A rut where I have the strong urge to write, but no inspiration comes. Every night, around 10:30 pm, I open my laptop, go to my blog, create a new post….. and blankly stare at it, write, and then soon erase everything I manage to type up.

Honestly, I’m tired. I am caught up in an endless loop of a daily routine my body has created alone. Every morning my alarm goes off at seven….then another at seven twenty, I drag my feet out of bed by seven twenty-five, I religiously forget to eat breakfast, stuff leftovers in my purse for lunch, grab my water bottle that’s had the same water in it for two days, and shuffle myself to work until five o’clock.

After five, I drive myself home, curse at Portsmouth traffic and people who don’t understand merge signs, make myself something easy for dinner, shower all of the filth off of me from the day, attempt to relax on the couch for an hour or so, fall asleep, wake up and attempt to be productive in housework or socialization with my boyfriend or family, stare at my computer screen and yell at my brain for not making beautiful words on paper, and eventually fall asleep to the sounds of Luna snoring and Friends playing in the background.

Unfortunately, every day is proving to be the same. The same struggles, frustrations, arguments, and thoughts constantly circling my head. All I want to do is scream, “STOP!” and curl into a cocoon of comfort. Because everything shouldn’t be this hard, should it? So why am I making it this hard?

It seems that I forgot the reason that I first started to blog…I enjoy writing. Whether it be about my day, a poem, a short story, or even an inspirational piece using metaphors to compare to what I feel- writing heals me, it soothes me, and I’ve become too concerned with, “Well, who’s listening?”, when my ultimate goal was getting what I have to say – just, out.

For now, my insiration strikes every few days or, if I’m lucky, four times a week where I can comfortably sit down and say, “This is the message I want to put across.” and do it. Until then, enjoy my day to day posts about nothing special going on in my life. The only way out of a rut is to face it head on, so here I go.

My biggest problem is that I allow myself to live inside of my head. Dragging myself down, making myself miserable over nothing.

And the worst part is people feel sympathy for me, asking me what’s wrong until I have allowed them inside of my head. And that’s why people leave. They cannot take the storms that I create. And I can’t blame them.

Because I spend the majority of my time attempting to convince myself that the Logan inside of my head is not the Logan in real life.

I want to believe that I’m a beautiful young lady, whose thoughtful and caring, takes cares of her loved ones, has a big, kind heart and shares it often, is funny and loved by many. But most of all, I want to believe that I make a difference in people’s lives, in a positive and warming way.

Yet, my thoughts will not let me live that way.

Despite the constant ragging storm inside of my head, I go about my day doing anything that I can for other people and I always try to do the right thing, even when it goes against the grain.

I’m learning to take care of myself, I just hope one day I’ll fall in love with myself all over again.