"listen to me now.
i want you to take a deep breath,
breath in....... and out.......
repeat that until you feel better, okay?"
how long am i able to do this?
how long until it doesn't help me anymore
it's not helping
will it start helping?
when will it start helping?
when will i calm down?
when will this feeling go away?
will it go away?
why isn't it going away?
"do you feel better?"
i sigh,
convincingly,
"y e s"
i saw them walk away
i could've asked them to stay with me
i could've said "no, i don't feel better"
but i didn't
i couldn't
well,
technically,
i could've
but i didnt,
because i was afraid
i'm enough of a burden on myself
do you really need that on top of your problems?
because i'm not the only one with problems
and there are people out there with much worse problems than me
people are crying
people are dying
barely surviving
and i'm here acting as if i'm worth it
all because i didn't feel okay
how selfish
i thought my problems mattered
for once i put myself over other people
it's what my therapist told me to do
why did it feel so bad
why didn't it work
it was supposed to work
why didn't it
tell me why it didn't work
tell me
tell me
please tell me
this can't go on forever
it's got to stop at some point
maybe i should just focus
focus on something positive
something positive
okay
...
how about breathing,
that's supposed to work
okay
breathe in
breathe out
breathe in
breathe out
breathe in
breathe out
that's a bit better,
i guess
i can cope with that
yeah
that's better
it's good
it's great
i'm better
i'm able to cope
i'm-
i'm-
i'm okay
