feelings are always hard to talk about. i have a hard time talking about my emotions or my problems to people i know, because i'm afraid of the way they'll think of me afterwards.

because people can pretend, right, to be consoling in front of your face. a downturn of their eyebrows, a glistening gaze of the eyes, the corners of their lips turning upwards in a sad smile as they say "i understand what you're going through. and it's valid for you to feel this way. you can tell me everything. i am here for you." it's easy to do that.

and it's easy to believe them and tell them, "i don't know, i've been feeling strange lately. i wake up in the morning but i don't actually get out of bed because i don't see a point in it, even though i have a class at 11 and it's already 10:35. but as i stumble out of bed and walk over to the bathroom, wash my face and brush my teeth, and put on my makeup and get dressed, i feel better and i begin to think that maybe it'll be a good day. i put on red lipstick because i think it makes me look prettier and probably makes me feel more confident.

i arrive 30 minutes late to my first lecture but i don't mind because i got a good grade on the first midterm and the professor uploads the powerpoint later anyways. and i start to feel happy as i walk to my next class because i like listening to the professor and typing up my notes; it makes me feel like i'm doing something and being efficient and besides, it always feels good to be just one person taking up one seat in a lecture hall of a hundred other people.

so i feel fine. great, even, enough for me to sit in the first row in my last class about developmental psychopathology and look like i'm listening intently to the professor and nod along when she gazes my way. sure, i feel stupidly self-conscious and worried that the people behind me—those 15 rows full of other people—are looking at the back of my head, thinking, what's she doing, sitting at the front row, she doesn't even pay attention in class anyway, even though the rational part of me knows that none of those people know me and are far too engrossed anyway in the lecture about different developmental pathways of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents. so i feel my hands stutter over the keyboard of my laptop because i'm getting nervous, but i don't think about it, because the rational part of me is loud and it thinks i'm completely stupid to be worrying about something like that. but that worrisome part of me exists and its existence alone is loud enough, so my rational side thinks that maybe i should listen to it, maybe it does have a point, maybe those people are judging me. so when it's 2:59 and the professor says that she'll pick up here on Tuesday, i pack my belongings slowly and wait until the room is mostly drained of students to hurry out the door.

i start to become conscious about the lipstick, because i think it might have gotten stained and rubbed off on to my cheek or something. or maybe it just faded, which is fine, except that i'm reminded of how ugly my lips look when my lipstick fades because my lips are still healing from the last time i ripped at them and the delicate parts that aren't fully healed always are stained red while the rest of my lips look dry and chapped and off-pink. so i start ripping at them again because i think it's the right choice, for some reason. i justify it by thinking that i'm just getting rid of dead skin, and that's sufficient justification until i feel a sting on my lips and see small stains of blood on the nails of my thumb and middle finger. then i think, okay, maybe i should stop. but i kind of know that i'll start doing it again mindlessly later today.

so when i get back to my dorm, i feel better because i'm alone in the room and i can just, i don't know, watch another episode of Sherlock or something. at least until i have to go to a club meeting, but that's fine, because i like that club.

except maybe i don't like that club, because the last time we had a proper meeting, i had to leave the meeting early and was verging on having a panic attack for an unexplainable reason. but i was probably just being dramatic then, making a big deal out of nothing. there wasn't a reason for me to react that way that time. it was just a fluke, it won't happen again, and i just have to not be so dramatic about things this time.

and two, three hours go by and i have to leave for the club meeting, so i grab my headphones and play my favorite songs on full blast. that makes me feel great, actually, and it feels refreshing to walk down Parker with all of the world's noise blocked off with only Serendipity playing into my ears.

but when i walk into the room where the club is meeting, i suddenly realize that i'm one person taking up one seat in a room of 14 other people, and i can feel my heart beating at the speed of DNA, which is pretty fast. i can hear it drumming at the back of my head, over the sound of the song at full volume. the song isn't any help, so i turn it off and put away my headphones.

the meeting is fine. i was rusty in the dyad because i haven't done them in two weeks, but the meeting is fine. and at 8, we all disperse and go back to where we need to go.

except i'm not really sure where i really need to go, so i linger at my desk, fidgeting with my phone, until i put on my headphones again and walk out of the room.

i always love walking in the dark and listening to music. but, for some reason, i keep walking and walking and my favorite songs are blasting in my ear and i'm almost near Parker again and i just need to turn left here and i'll be in my dorm, and maybe i can go to sleep, or take a shower, or watch a movie, or whatever the fuck i want, but i can't do that because for the past 10 minutes that i've been walking, something keeps threatening to spill over and i keep blinking but tears still come back and i cradle my face with cold hands and grasp at the sides of my headphones and squish them closer to my ears in the hopes that maybe if the song is louder, that well of emotions can be stifled and i can just turn left here and go back to my dorm but

i can't. i feel like if i turn left right now, i'm going to let out an unflattering noise from the back of my throat and tears are probably going to flow over and, god, if i start crying, even this noisy pop song at full volume isn't going to be enough to block my own thoughts from taking over my brain.

so i keep walking forward, and i know that there's a coffee shop somewhere down this street. maybe i'll stop there and think or something. or something seems like a better alternative to that. okay, i'll do that.

i don't know, i'm not good at talking about my feelings, but that's how i feel. i've been feeling strange lately."

but i don't tell people this, because of course i know people have more important things to worry about than me and my petty emotional problems. and i hate getting in the way of people and giving them one more thing to worry about. why would i want to trouble them with me? especially for them to think that i'm being melodramatic or overreacting?

after all, can you imagine opening up to someone and becoming vulnerable right in front of their eyes, only for them to think of you like that?