𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

4

dylan hayes 

I think I'm depressed.

If not then I've definitely hit rock bottom.

I don't know what time it is but the moon is out and has been for hours. The heat from the day is slowly starting to cool in the air but it's still warm enough to be out in barely any clothes.

Underneath my board the water sways gently, swaying my body with it as I stare up at the blank sky.

I'm in nothing but a small two piece bikini and I forgot a hair tie so my hair is wet and knotty.

All I can think about is how lonely I feel.

Loneliness is sinking feeling that's cast over me like a shadow. It latches onto me and isolates me even further with every day that passes.

I have this pit of dread in my stomach knowing that I have no one no talk too. There's no one there to go to the movies with me or go to lunch with me, to go out clubbing with or just have a night in with. I have no one to turn to when I'm sad and no one to share my happiness with anymore.

I'm just so sick of myself.

I spend every waking moment with myself and it's draining because I end up tearing myself apart. Hating myself. And I'm stuck in this cycle of not wanting to get out of bed because all I'm going to do is be with someone I hate, forever.

While there are times that I appreciate being alone, when it's quiet and I don't have to be social or energetic. I don't have to worry about what people think of me and if I've said the wrong thing. It gets boring after a few weeks.

If loneliness is like the ocean then I am like the sand, reeled in with false hope before being tossed away by the tide. It forces me to overthink every step I take and every breath I waste with each day that passes.

Time is weird when you're lonely. Sometimes it can go quick, days go by before you can even blink, blurring together into one mindless loop. Other times it drags one second out into a thousand, each hour stretching to a day and each day feeling like a week. Time halts and I'm stuck in the moment, watching as everybody moves on while I stay there.

It makes me retreat into myself, into my house. When time gets stuck I call in sick, spend the day in bed and sleep the weird feelings away. I don't have to think when I'm asleep and I use that to it's full advantage.

I also have a tendency to neglect my health, be it mental or physical. It might be because no one taught me how to take care of myself, there was no one there to care about my health and I find it really easy to ignore and minimise my problems.

While I'd like to say that I keep on top of all the adult shit I should, like keeping food and medicine in the house, I cannot. And on top of forgetting to buy it I forget to use it.

I just don't notice when I get hungry until I realise that I haven't eaten all day and it's late at night. After years of eating alone it gets hard to find the motivation to cook actual meals so even though I can cook, pretty well actually, I end up eating snacks.

Growing up, when my mother was around she would always comment on how much I ate or how I looked. It took me years to realise that she was lying and it really fucked me up for a while. She was so casual with the way she would say it, I just thought it was normal. Her favourite things to say were, "are you going to eat all of that" and "didn't you just eat, you're not hungry again are you" or some type of dig at the way my body looked.

I learned back then how to ignore my hunger and I haven't figured it out again, even years later.

Because of my mothers comments, I always used to wear oversized clothes to hide my body. It wasn't so much that I was really insecure about how my body looked, it's just that I didn't want other people to comment on it. Over the years I've become more confident and I've tried my best to unlearn everything my mother said but most of the damage has already been done.