I'm surrounded by people every day
People that never talk to me
People that don't even know I exist
Yet I have never felt more lonely than when I am in a room full off people
I wish it was easy for me to talk to others and make friends, but I can't
Words get choked up in my throat
My body begins to shake
My breath gets heavier and heavier until I'm sitting on the floor crying because I cannot control it
My thoughts are always out of control
A slight change in someone's tone of voice or body language makes me paranoid
I feel like no one wants to be around me
No one wants to be my friend
No one wants to be a part of my life
So I hide myself away
I isolate myself
To protect myself from getting hurt again
Because everyone I love
Everyone I let in
Everyone I get close to
Leaves me
You have no idea how much I wish I was different every day
How badly I want to feel normal
How badly I need somebody, anybody, who will love me unconditionally
But it is so, so difficult to change something that you have been doing for the past 16 years of your life
I have lived in constant fear that people would hate me, ridicule me, shame me just for being who I am my whole life
I would love to be me
But I have spent so long pretending to be someone else that I don't even know who I am anymore.