My Prison Cell

Some days it feels as if death and eternity are fighting for my soul; trapped inside of me at war with one another. I long for joy; for the good in this life, something that provides hope. Yet, hope is the most difficult thing to find in this hate and fear stricken world. After all, it's the world that taught me self-hatred all those years ago.

I want so badly to have control. I wake up each morning ready to continue fighting this war so that I may finally have control of the things I want most. But I hold much too tight to those things. I squeeze the life out of what it is that I try so hard to hold onto. It feels like I'm losing more and more control with each passing day as the things that I love slowly slip from my fingers. I wake up each morning ready to fight, just to lay down once again each night feeling more defeated than yesterday.

All my life, I have searched for an escape; a place to run, a saving grace. My soul weighs heavy with the pain it has endured; my heart forever scarred with the trauma that it has suffered, and my mind overwhelmed with the dreadful thoughts and memories that it so badly wants to forget. I am trapped inside this prison we call life, and the cell is that of my brain. There is no light, no joy, and no purpose; only a life sentence. Only my mind and me, left at war with each other for the rest of our days. I can run, but I can’t hide. I've attempted to escape hundreds of times. Everyone else around me has succeeded at escape, while I get caught in the chains that drag me right back into that cell. I can't break from the chains; they convince me that I'll never escape. You cannot escape the chains that are that of your own mind.

I fight and I fight and I fight. I scratch and I claw to escape my prison cell. I scratch and I claw to escape myself. I want out. I don't want this anymore. I don't want to live in this prison cell any longer. I don’t want to spend each day attempting to run, and getting nowhere doing it. I need something to pull me out. I need something else to take control, because I can't do it any longer. But what I need is what I keep fighting. What I need is hope and healing, yet I keep running from those things. Running means you refuse to admit there is a problem. Running means you refuse to acknowledge the wounds that scar your heart. Running means you reject healing and recovery. Running means you reject love. Running means you reject hope.

There comes a time when running away is no longer what should be done. One day, you wake up, and you decide that you no longer want control; you don’t want to keep using every ounce of strength you have left to keep fighting for control each and every day while death lingers over you; taunting you and laughing at your pathetic efforts.

So why not give into death? Why not give into the thoughts of putting an end to it all with just one fateful decision?

With death comes the absence of life. Death means no chance of light; no chance at healing in this lifetime. Death means you have given up on the hope of healing and recovery. If I choose to give up control but still choose life, I am choosing hope.

Healing means pain. It means facing the messy parts of life. It means facing the trauma and the hurt that I fought so badly to bury six feet deep. Choosing life over death means making a conscious decision to face reality. I must take the hurt and the pain and all of my illnesses head on. Choosing life over death means choosing hope. Choosing hope means that you have not given up the fight, but that you have given up control, because it wasn’t even your control to be fighting for to begin with.

Hope is not just a feeling, or an expectation and desire. Hope is an anthem. Hope is the anthem.  

When hope burns inside of you, running away isn't considered and option. Hope is what allows me to face the harsh realities of mental illness, and still believe that there is a purpose in all of the pain. I'm tired of trying to run. I don't want to continue my attempts at escaping, only to get dragged right back into that prison cell. I want to face what needs to be faced, and heal from it all. I may not ever forget the pain, and there is a chance healing may not even come in this lifetime. But that is a chance I am willing to take for the sake of my own life. I want to someday say that I didn't fight for control, but that I fought for hope. 

Hope allows me to see the end in sight, no matter how far off it may be. Hope is my motivator to wake up each day and fight this lifelong war.

I am not where I want to be, or where I ought to be, but hope allows me to look at life in such a way that someday, I won't feel like this. Someday, death will not silence me; my chains will not keep me contained in my prison cell and my mind will no longer be that prison cell. My heart may be forever wounded and scarred, but those wounds and scars are where the light shines through. It's time that I stop preventing that light from shining through.

The wounds, the pain, the hurt, the trauma; all of it, is inescapable. Pain is inevitable. But we have the choice to choose whether or not we will allow those things to hold us down and keep us locked in our prison cells.

Hope is the anthem, and this is my anthem:

I will not run from the darkness and pain. I will not hide from the hurt, and I will not hide from the trauma that so badly needs to be recognized and dealt with. I will not shy away from healing. I will not focus on darkness, when the light is trying its hardest to shine through. I will not hide from what needs to be faced. I will scream of hope at the top of my lungs until the world hears its message.

My lungs and I were born to fight. Sometimes I’m not sure what I’m fighting for.
But death ain’t the only end in sight, ‘cause this ain’t a battle it’s a lifelong war.
My heartbeat, my oxygen, my banner, my home; my freedom, my song. Your hope is the anthem of my soul.

Hope is the Anthem, Switchfoot

You’re a version of yourself, but you’re not the same.
You try to keep the wound camouflaged, and the stiches heal but the years are lost, and another bottle on the shelf can’t numb the pain.
Why’re you running from yourself now? You can’t run away.
‘Cause your scars shine like dark stars. Yeah, your wounds are where the light shines through. So let’s go there, to that place where we sing these broken prayers where the light shines through. The wound is where the light shines through.

Where the Light Shines Through, Switchfoot

If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text START to 741-741

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