Then it just sits there, like an unpaid bill you keep meaning to deal with it but don’t have the energy to.
Some days it screams. Other days it hums quietly in the background, like a fridge you only notice at 3 a.m. when the house is silent and your brain refuses to clock out.
People ask what’s wrong, as if pain comes with bullet points.
As if I can say, “Oh, just the usual existential dread with a side of malfunctioning neurotransmitters.”
Pain doesn’t want sympathy. It wants space. It wants acknowledgment. It wants me to stop pretending I’m fine just because I’m still standing.
I am functional.
I am polite.
I am deeply, inconveniently not okay.
But I’m still here.
Which apparently counts for something, even the days when pain feels like the only personality trait I didn’t ask for.
Writing about it doesn’t make it vanish.
It doesn’t fix the wiring. But sometimes putting words to pain is like sliding the fridge back into place so you can see it in the light, even if it’s still humming.
Until next time,
K. Unsupervised
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