I feel lost today. I don’t know how to act or what to do. Part of me wants to get angry at the world—I have every right to be mad, to go a little crazy after all the hurt I’ve felt. Sometimes I even wonder if the pain inside me should count as an illness. Still, I hold myself together. Maybe I’m too stubborn to fall apart. My worries have faded into emptiness instead of shattering me. Now I stand here, feeling nothing, asking, “What am I really doing?” I’ve lived through trauma. I’ve punished and blamed myself, even stopped validating my own feelings, hoping the hurt would finally break me. I’ve thought about harming myself, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Nothing works. I just want to feel the pain—really feel it, instead of going numb. (—lamuerte)