I feel so lonely. There is still that feeling of helpless doom that surrounds me sometimes, an after effect of those old days. On the brink of suicide, I felt so lonely then, but now I have to wonder if I am lonelier now. Then I felt I had my friends if I would reach out my hand to them, I just didn’t want to push them to the edge with my burdens the way theirs had pushed me. Though my family was distant because the web of lies I told about my friends, I knew they loved me and though I was losing myself they could bring me back to what I thought was me.
  When I lost myself to the depression that  knowledge had given me, I lost not myself but the illusion of my child self. I thought myself to be my child personality that had undergone a few external changes for protection but was still the same. When I “lost myself” what really happened was the forced acceptance of who I used to be, the different parts that I was, and what I was becoming. It was a stark reality that I still have difficulty with from time to time; that I am neither the careless little girl nor the strong and confident person my friends see.
   The final phases of this person I suppose was not only me discovering the combined person I had become but also the one person who could see me put together all the shattered pieces and accept them. As I stitched together my mind he became aware of the pieces, but what about those close? I had not reached out to my friends or family and unaware of the change, there was only so much I could tell them. I grew close to my savior only to discover that finding my soul and myself meant that I had to lose everyone else.
   When with that one person, I have ceased to feel the stitches, feeling more content and whole then I have since I was small. When he is gone though the darkness often swirls to claim me yet. When he is gone I am truly lonelier then I have ever been. My friends but see the one side of me they knew and nothing more, yet I sense that it is strange and foreign to them too. My family can feel a change but I doubt they know from where it came and I am still their sweet girl. With the wholeness of myself I have lost my ability to reach out and connect with those that I once and still do hold most dear.
   The distance between us would have been unfathomable only a few years ago and I live with it. It is familiar with characteristic use that it is often forgot, few moments am I reminded and reflect on how bizarre it truly is for me. I am trapped, how do I show them a stranger with a familiar face? I can only hope that eventually I will outgrow this strangeness and allow them to know the new me.

Until then: I am alone,
                        KatelynLee