Trey Reynolds

Suffering Silently

Nobody knows what you’re going through until it’s too late. You silently suffer and keep a smile on your face because of fear of judgment. The time you tried to tell someone, they responded with “Stop crying for attention.” so you stayed quiet. You followed what everyone else told you to do. You weren’t allowed to show your emotions. When you were happy about something people made fun of the thing you love. When you were mad at something they said you were being too dramatic. Nothing you ever did was the right thing to do. You were always in the wrong in their eyes. So you went home, and you crawled in your bed. You suffered silently where nobody could hear you. You felt alone, tortured by your own brain. When you were proud of the story you wrote, you showed everyone. But then that one person came along and told you that you weren’t good enough, that you would never be good enough. So you never picked up a pencil again. You were proud of that new dress you got and you showed all your friends. Then that one person came up to you and told you that you look slutty, so you started wearing baggy shirts and sweatpants all the time. You were ashamed of your own body because the people that were jealous of you would make fun of you. They’d say “I wish I was skinnier, but not that skinny.” So again you’d go home and be alone with your thoughts. Suffering silently in the treacherous depths of your brain. You fall in love. With someone that treats you right. Someone that gives you everything you need to feel fulfilled. But then that one person comes around and judges you for liking them, and your social anxiety is too high to stand up for yourself, so you say, “I don’t really like him, he’s just a friend.” Which breaks his heart and scares him away. Then you go home. Suffering Silently. Alone in your own head with all the terrible mistakes you made. You can never feel like you’re enough for anyone, not even yourself. So you climb those stairs. Climb higher and higher until you reach the roof. The only place you can be free from everyday life, free from your own thoughts. The wind brushes up against your cheek and makes you feel loved by something. So you step to the edge. Where you look down and see the world around you. You’re so high up that the people look like ants. But you can still feel the disgust in every single one of them. You see cars racing, you hear them honking. You know that there is only one way to get the noises to stop. Only one way to feel at peace with yourself and not have to suffer silently anymore. So you scoot closer off the edge. You keep telling yourself that this will be okay and you will be okay after you get over this one last step to peace. But there is still something holding you back. Two arms grasped around your waist. It’s you. You are the one holding yourself back, the voices telling you to jump off are the people that judge you. The people that will pretend that they were so close to you if you jumped. They would tell everyone how they never saw it coming. They will tell everyone how they wished you would’ve said something to them so they could get you help. But they wouldn’t help. So you take three steps back and you collapse to your knees. Your head goes in between your legs and you burst into tears. Your heart shatters. But a door creeks behind you. You turn to see who is there. It’s the little old lady that lives two doors down from you. She bends down next to you and grabs your hand. “Are you okay sugar plum?” She asks. And at that moment you know that stepping back was the right thing to do. You wrap your arms around her and let your body sink into hers. You no longer have to suffer silently.