I don't feel like I can,
What's the use?
They all want me to admit I'm broken,
So I keep refusing.
The few times I believe I'm suffering I can't admit,
Because they'll see it as proving them right,
And I need them to understand they've got it all wrong.
I want them to hurt like they've hurt me by their dismissal.
I don't want to see another psychiatrist I just want them to leave me alone,
It's not like they're ever going to help me.
Then there are times I know I just need to keep pushing,
To keep trying to find someone who will believe me,
Someone who won't just say it's because of my anxiety,
Except then my social anxiety comes back,
Because they keep proving to me that there's no way they'll think I'm not just mental.
And maybe sometimes they actually think they're being nice,
But seriously? Are they blind? They would never put up with that themselves.
They push me to my limit,
If it's evident I'm going insane then they should know,
That it's all because of them!
It would drive any emotionally/mentally stable person close to the edge,
But then by wandering over to it, they're proving themselves right,
And I don't want to help them.
They're not helping me.

I just want someone to hear what I'm saying,
And not immediately see "social anxiety"
After all, their labels of "needing psychiatric help" were never there when I needed them,
And I took it like the deepest stab back then,
And now, instead I can't push them away when I don't need them,
I can't escape the "should probably see a psychiatrist", "would probably benefit from counselling" and "symptoms are dissociative and functional"
I can't run fast enough from it -
God knows I can't even run at all,
But professionals tell me that "I can do it" as if I'm making it up,
Or should just try harder.
Do you really think I don't want to be capable of feeding myself food and drink?
At points I could try a thousand percent a thousand times to pick myself up from the floor again,
Will power doesn't work!
It doesn't get rid of physical barriers that everyone else is telling me are some result of trauma, stress or anxiety.

I feel like I've been beaten down so many times already,
I want to find out the truth but I'm too scared of being laughed at,
But I got over that fear that my social anxiety taught me when I first sought help,
I've tried so many times though,
And each time I've guessed the same negative outcome.
It's as if someone really is planning and plotting against me,
Will they not stop till they've gotten me admitted to somewhere I don't belong right now?
Even my reactions would serve as proof to them,
I must just be insane, completely deranged.
"Not normal"
Come on, I won't pretend to miss the meaning of that,
What they really meant was: that's not a mentally healthy person's reaction. Maybe she really is making it up.
The truth is you can't make stuff like this up!
You can't fake shaking the way I do,
Not even more than enough diazepam would cure it.

I know this doesn't help prove my sanity,
And this doubtfully sounds like anything poetic,
It's just I didn't feel like writing, and when I feel sad I can get angry,
I'm just trying to vent and tell the truth,
Because maybe one day, someone who feels as alone and disheartened as me,
Won't feel as bad as I feel.

It's really not glamorous,
And I don't know where I am finding the strength to share this from,
I need to get it out though,
And if anyone who needs to hear this, like me, to find out they are not really all alone reads this and finally feels a glimpse of safety,
Or even to open the eyes of people who wouldn't otherwise understand,
Then maybe this had a purpose.

And if anyone who ever reads this,
Happens to be a doctor,
Or mental health professional:
Please listen.
Please listen to your patients without judgements,
Without immediately linking physical symptoms that sound out of sorts, or that don't make sense, to what it says in their notes about their mental health.
The thing is a lot of people pick and choose what to listen to and when,
And in my experience it always seems to be the wrong choice at the wrong time.
If you have a patient who tells you they desperately need your help,
Or even the ones who are too afraid to ask but are despairingly trying to make you notice, to make you understand what they put up with day by day,
Please, please help them.
And don't you dare tell them, like one told me, to "throw away your crutches, I don't like you using them"
Because you are killing every shred of dignity that they are trying to cling onto.
All we want is to be taken seriously,
WE are trying to get better,
But are you really trying to help us?
You may think you are but perhaps you're probably not.
Please realise, that you're in such a respectful position that it's important how you handle what you say, your responses.
Please understand how you have the power to break vulnerable genuinely sick people.
Please believe people like me and listen when they say they don't think it's psychological.
Please listen.

The street is silent, as she walks down,
Starlight surrounds her, all around.
She wants to be alone, she wants to go,
But all she wants to do is be at home.

She can't face the life there though,
The reactive circumstances,
Facing everyone else face up to stuff,
The things that she just wants to quieten down.

Pacing the empty streets, she sighs,
"Goodnight to the world, I'll never say goodbye."
She knows she can't walk this path forever,
People will wonder 'what that crazy girl is making holes in her shoes for?'
Never good at saying goodbye,
She goes back to her warm house,
Submitting herself to trying to understand everyone else,
But according to most, she picks the wrong people to understand.

Whilst she stumbles up the stairs,
Because she's not very well,
And she still needs more rest,
She's feeling upset with the reason of her silence,
For this only makes the noise in her mind more violent.
She wants to be heard, and also she doesn't,
Because she knows the importance of the needs of others,
Even when they conflict her own,
So to make herself feel better,
For some of the cold thoughts inside her head,
She attempts to tell herself, it's because she's trying to be a good person first, instead;
Or else she'll think she's being selfish, for wanting to be able to confide in someone.
Maybe a sympathetic person outside the situation,
Could understand how she feels and why she views things as she's starting to.

She just doesn't understand,
Why it's so easy,
For everyone else to cut people out.
This is her come down,
When she thinks that perhaps, she too, would be better off with out.

'Can you get rid of everyone who splits off from others?' She wonders.
'Not really', she answers, 'because there would always be someone else,
There will always be someone to leave someone else.'
'It's okay', she tells herself, 'because eventually they'll all have left me too,'
Because surely after the amount of people that leave her,
There should be a time when she really is completely on her own.

Everything about the future is so different now:
Thinking about the future before,
Used to be like fluffy white clouds,
Hopeful and filled with friends,
Back then, I could never have imagined not having friends
And I'm not even the type of person who's magically friends with everyone,
But I always assumed I'd still have a few,
And then it wouldn't matter so much how many people hated me,
Hypothetically, if anyone even bothered enough to.
I'm not sure they would though,
Because I don't feel like anyone even sees me,
Not anymore, and probably not in the first place,
But I didn't care then, enough to notice.