That feeling… your stomach starts to churn, and your legs become weak.  Your vision becomes cloudy, and you feel like your spinning.  When you feel like you are just going to throw up… 

That's me…  everyday.

A heating pad, saltines and a peppermint just can't cut it.  No matter that you took an asprin, or that you are on your way back to bed to just lie down until the floor stops moving under your firmly planted feet. 

Fingers trembling, and your heart beating so fast you can't hear anything else.  One phrase keeps running through your head… you can barely hear it, but you continue saying it.  You're mantra. 

For me it’s… 'It's ok… You're fine…' over and over hoping that one of these times I will hear it and it will ring true.

Stuck in a nightmare with no way out…  You wish for a deep sleep… an intermission between one horrible day and the next.  But the nightmare that never ends holds you in its grasp into the wee hours of the morning.  It fills your head with worries and thoughts that should have been lost or forgotten years ago. 

I'm stuck in the past.  The far off past that haunts me because my present isn't really considered living.

Sleep finally comes, but at a price.  Trading in one nightmare for another…  Wandering around the corridors of your mind you mix and mash memories with mysteries you heard on the news.  You find yourself playing that addictive online game in your sleep… Only this time, there is something important you are playing for, and unfortunately you are still losing… even in your sleep you lose.

I can't seem to win…  No matter how many times I try a different move, or I think about some way to change the game I lose.

There are two ways to start the new day.  You chose to roll over and hide under the covers.  Falling back asleep, ambling back into your dreamland because of the two choices it is still the safer bet.  Others would sit up and crawl out of bed, ready or just willing themselves, to face the day. 

I am a coward…  I haven't gotten out of bed until I was ready to face the day… and by the time I finally did… the day was more than half over. 

It's easy to dispense advice.  It's easier to ignore it.  It's even easier to find a place to hide. 

I'm hiding… even when I'm 'online'…  I'm hiding every time I smile or laugh or say 'it's ok' or 'I'm fine' or 'I'm happy'. 

I know that there have to be good people out there.  People who will take the time to see me for who I am… I've found some of you here… Which is better late than never… right?  But where were you all when I was digging this hole?  Where was I suppose to go when the world turned from something I could handle to a place I have no wanting to be associated with?

People… suck. 

I'm tired of the people in their cars… the people who cut me off, who talk on their cell phones, who flick me off.   

I'm tired of the people in the stores…  The sales associates who give me an up and down glance and consider me unworthy, who don't even see me when I walk past, who treat me like a child…  The customers who push me around, talk loudly into their cell phones or to their friends, the ones who ignore me when they hear my voice finally reach their ears, after more than one time of saying, 'excuse me'.

I'm tired of men.  Men of the internet, men of real life.  You are all the same.  But yet you treat me differently depending on where you 'see' me.  To all men, you suck.  Obviously, your heads are up your collective asses. 

I'm tired of women.  Why can't we all just be ok with one another?  Why do we size each other up and put each other down?  Why do we let the images that a few people call beautiful make us hate ourselves?  Why do you create cliques and gossip about other women?  You hate when you are left out or talked about so why would women do it to others?

I'm so tired of never measuring up because of how I look.  I'm never going to be considered some beautiful person, and I would never see myself as one even if I somehow could transform into what is considered pretty. 

I'm just me.  I'm quiet… shy… and overlooked.