Shadows of the Mind

The Breaking Point

The Breaking Point

Every day feels as if I'm holding on to a frayed, thinning thread. Like some fine storm that has been raging within, I have tried to keep it silent. At the chase of my routine: waking up, dressing up, smiling at the mirror, facing the world—below that—all this gnawing fear that one day I am not going to hold it together.

I guess I'm afraid of what the scene will be like as on one's last nerve now. So I sometimes picture that moment, the very moment, when I can't take it anymore. Will it be a quiet implosion, a silent tear rolling down my cheek, as I crumble under the weight of it? Or will it be explosive, like a burst of everything that has been bottled up—anger, sadness, frustration—erupting like a volcano?

The worst part of it is, I am not even sure of what is inside me anymore. I've been holding so much back, keeping it all buried under layers of composure and politeness. I've become so good at pretending, at wearing this mask of normalcy that even I've started to believe it. But I know it's there, that dark cloud hovering just at the edge of my consciousness.

I've tried so hard to push it back, to shove it back into the shadows where it naturally belongs. But it's relentless, like a tidal wave with the power of days on end of every suppressed emotion set in. I sometimes wonder if others can see it themselves, the tension I carry everywhere. I wonder if they can feel the chaos underneath my calm exterior.

There's a part in me that's afraid of that day, a day when I finally lose it. Scared of what I'll say, what I'll do. I'm scared to hurt the people I like and become someone I simply do not know. But then, in another part, I've grown tired: holding in every bit of it and, in essence, pretending things are fine when they're not.

I don't want to go haywire. I don't want to unleash this emotional typhoon that can submerge everything within its path. I don't want to explode. But I dunno how much longer I can go on like this. How much longer I can continue acting like I'm okay when inside, I'm anything but.

So I walk this tightrope, balancing carefully, hoping against hope I can keep it all together. But deep down, I know someday it will all give. And I'm terribly scared of what will happen when it does.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I just let everything go. If I would wear all my feelings on my sleeves, not pretend, and let the floodgates burst open. What would that look like? Would it be a release, suddenly light because the burden I have borne for so long has been lifted? Or maybe it would be terrifying: that feeling you get when you're lost in a sea of overwhelming emotions.

I can just imagine what their faces will look like—the shock on them, my friends, my family, the ones who think they really know me. What would they say if they could see me, the real me, which I had hidden away for so long? Would they be shocked? Would they back off, or try to help, to fix something which feels so shattered that it can't ever be put together again?

But that's the thing, right? I don't really know if I want to be fixed. I don't really want anyone else to see this part of me, the part that's scared and vulnerable and so close to breaking that it feels like any little push could send me over the edge. I built these walls up, so nobody could see and so nobody could hurt the real me.

It's not that I don't trust them. I do, or at least I want to. But this… this is different. This isn't something I can just talk about over coffee or laugh off with a joke. It's the deepest, darkest part of me, the part that I'm not even sure anyone else would understand. How do you explain to someone that you're afraid of yourself? That you're scared of what'd happen if you'd stop holding everything in?

There are days when I feel I'm near something—located, maybe, close to the brink of it, or teetering upon the edge of something I won't be able to backspace. On days like those, I try to stay out of people's way, to keep myself and keep quiet.

But try as I would, I could not avoid it. Ever-present, a hovering presence that I could not shake off.

What am I going to do when the day comes and I can't hold all of this inside me? Will I scream, or maybe cry, or just collapse inside myself like a dying star? But of one thing I am sure—it is coming, and that thought terrifies me.

So I put up that pretend front—keep smiling, nodding, and going through the motions. I keep telling myself I can handle it, strong enough to keep it all inside. But deep down, I know the truth. I'm running out of time, and one day, maybe soon, it's all going to come crashing down.

For when that happens, I'm not sure who I will be, not sure if I'd still know me. And that's what scares me most—not the explosion itself but what comes afterward. What is left after the storm?: What is left when all that remains is the wreckage? Will I be adequate to pick up the pieces, or will I lie in the ruins of what I used to be?

—Lady_Perrila