Watching movies or TV shows about people in psych wards always pulls something up from inside of me. It reminds me of counseling. Pulling the poison from wounds. It reminds me of what it was like to cry with someone else, even if that person was a counselor. Someone who won’t be there anymore for me now that my counseling is over, during the day to day struggle.

It also reminds me how close I feel to them, those committed people. I’m not so different from them. I’m broken inside, too. Maybe no one is so dissimilar from them. Everyone is a little broken inside. Maybe the people in psych wards are just a little more broken than the rest of us.

I haven’t cried with anyone since counseling. I’m afraid. I go through things that I don’t tell my friends about. I think it makes me feel special, knowing that I’m going through a great struggle inside and they’re not. It makes me feel special, in some twisted way that makes sense to me.

There’s a line in Crocodile Dundee, where Mick learns about psychiatrists. He said, “What’re they?” “They talk to people about their problems.” “What, don’t they have any mates?”

Yes, I have mates. I don’t tell them what I’m going through. I feel like it’s a battle that they shouldn’t have to fight. It’s my fight. So I blog. I write it down. Maybe they’ll see it. And that “maybe” makes me feel a little better.

I found myself tonight wishing I was going to counseling again, so I could cry with someone. So I could really tell them how I felt without feeling like I was burdening them with my problems. I’m probably one of the most emotional people in my group of friends. I hide it the best I can. It’s like trying to hold in a sneeze. It leaks out somewhere else.

I’m broken inside. I want to just have my little sob session so that I can get it out of my system and go back to living the way I’m used to. But that’s not how it works, is it. Changing means taking action. It’s always the hardest part. Stepping off the ledge, even when you know there’s a net under you.

I’m just afraid. I’m afraid to trust someone I know. It’s harder to change existing relationships than to make new ones based on something else. I think, “They don’t understand what I’m going through.” And maybe they wouldn’t, even if I told them. Maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe they haven’t felt the sort of pain I’ve felt. Maybe they have. Maybe they haven’t felt intensely lonely like I have. Maybe they have.

In the end, it comes down to me. It stops being about, “Look at how much shit I have to go through that no one else does,” and, “Why me?” Eventually, I just want to get better. I want to stop comparing myself to someone else. Stop asking why me and not someone else. It gets tiring. I push myself to the edge with psychoanalysis, fighting myself, convincing myself of this or that. I eventually stop and say, “What can do to be better?” It always takes a really long time. If I solve this puzzle, what will I do next? How ‘bout, be happy, you jackass. I’m afraid to let myself be happy.

But the psychologists are right. You just have to start talking. Eventually, what really matters comes to the surface.

They say being a 4 is the hardest. Small comfort. It’s a cop out.