I cannot express my feelings, thoughts, or emotions freely.  Not at work or at my home.  Cannot let anyone see, hear, or be burdened with and yet... it slips out, in bits and pieces anyway.  It's really pathetic, truthfully, when you must run and hide in a dark corner.. in a shadow.. in a little room... to cry and sob.

That is what I've been doing, somewhat daily, for over a week now.  Just spontaneous bouts of sobbing.  Only, I have to hide you see.  I can't do it out in the open or where anyone can hear me.  I have to hide my fragility.

To everyone else, in the open, at home and at work... I must have the smile, the twinkle, the engagement in the conversation.  I must be responsive, reactive, and often times proactive.  I must manage and delegate and administrate.

So, to need to cry.. to think blackened thoughts.. I must hide.  I must hide myself to express pain.

I know it's the illness that turns my thoughts and I know it's the illness that twists my brain.  I know that eventually the damn pendulum will swing up again and I know I have to ride all this out.  Yet, when all I see is grey and dark and all I feel is deep emotional and mental pain... coupled with actual physical pain... life just ends up in a huge rolling seeping ball of black spirit sucking misery.

So, you take what you get that may lift your heart for a bit.  A giggle from your teenage daughter, watching a yellow tabby kitten putt a ball between it's front paws, hearing the morning song birds chirping at the new day, or feeling the warm breeze on a winter's day.  You take it, that few seconds, and you hold it to your chest and you enhale it because it's only for a few seconds but it's more than anything at that moment.

This is what desparation is, my friends.  Searching and grasping for just a few seconds.. a few precious seconds that your heart is lifted for a wee bit.. to get you through.

Today I thought again, seriously, of suicide.  It comes daily and it visits nightly.  I sat, in my little blue office, alone with the door closed shut and thought of just ending it all.. the pain so great. 

Then I looked up and saw a photo of my daughter and she was laughing and smiling and I thought "I can't leave (daughter's name) for I love her so and if I were to go, she'd be left to her Daddy who neglected and rejected and still does.  Yet, I have no idea how to keep going, how to keep wanting to remain when the pain is sucking me deeper into the abyss." and then I burst into sobbing tears... right there at my desk. 

A middle aged, grey haired, lonely, obese, partially crippled woman... sobbing like a 2 day old newborn.

I just want to go to sleep and go home and yet, I know I'll never see home if I were to just go to sleep.