Quazi Anika Afrin
Day 01
Dear stranger,
Some days are harder than others; I don’t know what to do with all these feelings. I don’t know how to deal with all the emotions coursing through me, and leaving me desperate for a release. What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to tell? What am I supposed to tell them? I don’t know how to explain it to myself, let alone to someone else. This anguish, this sorrow, this sadness, this heartache, it drives me completely, utterly crazy and miserable. I feel like sobbing my heart out, I feel like letting it all out, but for some wretched reason the tears don’t seem to fall and I am left trapped with all these emotions.
I tell myself I’ll get through this, I tell myself that I am strong and I’ll come out of this stronger, after all what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? But what if it kills you? No matter how many times I tell myself, what if I am actually not strong enough, what if I am unable to get through it? What then? How many times do I have to break down? How many panic attacks, anxiety attacks, and mental breakdowns is it going to take before I feel fine again? How many days of sadness do I have to endure? How many times do I have to consciously stop myself from feeling down so that I can get work done? How many days of fake smiles and a pretentious happy personality do l have to wear? How many more times do I have to mask my sorrows with a sense of humour? How many times do I have to make others laugh so that they don’t question my lack of happiness? How many times do I have to spend every minute of my life planning out every detail so that I can create miniscule pockets of happiness for myself and then have it ruined due to other people’s actions? How many days of faking just to be okay? How many days will it take for me to be okay again?
I need to know when it stops. I need it to stop. I am getting tired. The hard days are getting harder and I don’t know what to do anymore. All I know is that I want to be genuinely happy again, that I just want to be okay.
Yours truly,
A girl with a wretched soul
Day 19
Dear stranger,
It’s been a while since I’ve last talked to you. Many things have changed since then, too many for
me to count, too many for me to acknowledge and react to, so I’ve decided to stay silent. You see, I have been broken again. I know this time it was completely my fault; I blurred the line, I broke down my walls and let myself out, I let myself be vulnerable. I did this to myself. I let myself be, I formed a close bond with someone to such an extent that I depended on them emotionally to function.
I opened up to someone after ages and spent hours of my life talking to him on the phone, telling him everything, starting from how my day was to what problems I had been dealing with. Unknowingly he became my personal journal, with the added benefit of him always finding ways to make my problems seem miniscule. I reciprocated and became his journal. I knew we were friends, but I also knew we had blurred several lines of friendship ages ago, and now the bond was a messy, tangled web of lines that I never wanted to cross but still somehow got stuck in.
I forgot that emotions are very tricky and habits are hard to break and the way each person reacts to something is vastly different from the other. I couldn’t live like that anymore, not when I was heavily dependent on someone to be emotionally okay, not when I didn’t know how to be happy by myself. I was lost, I did what I had to do, I chose myself over him, I chose to be alone and heartbroken. I chose to be hurt and sad and miserable because that meant I would be taking charge and I would have to be emotionally stable on my own.
I had finally chosen to rise above and let myself be alone with my thoughts and feelings. I know I am strong, I know I will be. I will let time heal all my wounds and hope to feel better. But sometimes I hate the way I am feeling and I hate myself for ruining my temporary state of happiness. I get tired of pretending to be okay, pretending to be perfect, pretending that everything is alright and I am strong. The truth is that I’m not; I’m broken and hurt and desperately need someone other than me to glue me back together. I am getting exhausted with the pretence of being happy. But I know this is an important step towards reaching the emotional stability I wish to achieve and so I keep trying and pushing myself. Hopefully one day, it’ll be worth all this pain and suffering. Till then, here’s to hoping for a better future.
Yours truly,
A girl with a broken heart
Day 44
Dear stranger,
I feel empty. There are so many emotions coursing through me right now that I have become numb. I don’t want to feel anymore, it hurts too much. I am so tired and stressed out. I feel indescribably alone. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to make it stop, I just want it to end.
I just want to escape from it all, to leave all this behind and to never come back. I am really tired and I really don’t want to do this any longer.
I don’t know how much longer I will be able to hold myself together, I don’t know if I can, I just know I have to because no one else will.
Yours truly,
A girl with overwhelming emotions
Day 69
Dear stranger,
I woke up with a smile today. It was glorious, it was as if all my dreams had suddenly come true and I had somehow managed to glue myself back together. I was happy the entire day and even though some events had caused the happiness to fade at times, the smile managed to come back on its own.
I think I will be fine after all. Thank you for always listening.
Yours truly,
A girl with a fighting chance
Day 87
Dear stranger,
I am finally happy by myself!
Yours truly,
A girl with a smile