The hardest decision I ever mad was trying to live.

Let me try to set the scene.

I go off to university to get the law degree my parents want and make them proud.

I... Flounder.

I struggle.

I spend every day hardly getting out of bed and wanting to kill myself.

I've felt this way before.

It's never been this bad before.

Why is it this bad now?

What changed?

My parents find out because I can't lie when they ask me whether I've eaten or bathed or gone to class.

They throw daggers at my face through the screen of my phone.

I am left alone with nothing but their criticism.

But it's fine.

It's my fault, after all.

I must get up.

I must be normal, again.

Good enough.

I must, I must, I must.

One year, two.

It's been... Hard.

Harder than it ever was.

External shame comes when you feel you aren't doing enough for you to be socially acceptable

Internal shame is... Real.

It isn't from them.

It's your mind, body and soul screaming at you to set yourself free.

It won't go away unless you do something about it.

But I'm terrified.

Fear has wrapped its icy hands around my throat and drowned me in a pool of apathy.

It's so much, so overwhelming that I must numb myself.

I hardly exist.

My grades get worse but I constantly promise myself it will be better next time, next time, next time, soon, soon, just keep swimming..

There is a moment.

There is always a buildup before the main event.

But this is the time that changes everything.

I watch a show, rotting away on my bed in my room.

A character I care about kills herself in the finale.

My breath catches and I realise

I can't keep living like this.

I can't keep...

Living my entire life waiting to die.

Hoping for it.

Pleading with the gods like a drunken, ruined fool to take this thing they call a gift from me.

Steal away my soul and leave this shell and this pain and these horrid, horrid memories behind.

I am terrified to spend my life this way.

So...

I make a change.

It's the most terrifying thing I've done thus far.

Because I actually did it, I suppose, not just whispering it in my head.

I left the university.

I left the course.

I resolved to go somewhere new.

If I am going to live and die experiencing the good and bad of being a human being,

I deserve the kindness of wanting to be alive, don't I?

At least a little bit.

I think we all deserve some self-compassion, don't you?

The external shame tries to drown out the internal one.

How dare I?

They'll laugh at you.

You're an embarrassment and disgrace.

Who do you think you are?

But the internal shame is my self.

I don't know which.

All of us?

Past; the inner child.

Present; breathing and broken.

Future; unknown.

It's all of us.

It is me as I was and am and will be, begging for a second chance.

Fear has had so much control over my life...

I wanted to be free of his cage, even just for a moment.

He comes back, of course.

I suppose he always will.

But I remember that moment.

The moment it clicked that I do not have to put myself through torture to make another happy.

Because they don't care as much as I think they do, anyway.

And I know I made the right choice.

So we'll continue to dance together, Fear and I.

But somewhere...

Else.

I got so used to the suffocation of familiar that I was ready to dissolve myself for it.

There are better ways to drown.