Alexithymia, it means difficulty describing emotions to others. It can also mean having difficulty feeling emotions at all. Well, I for one certainly have no problem with the latter, regrettably at times. But the first definition however, I identify all too well with. Most words are never ‘big’ enough for me, powerful enough. I could be saying everything I needed to, with every word being interpreted the way I intended, and I wouldn’t even know it because I’m always too busy beating myself up over the lack of clarity I’ve convinced myself that I’m providing. I need everything to sound as eloquent and brilliant as it does in my mind, where diction and vocabulary aren’t pressures. My thoughts run smoothly inside of me, but once they overflow outside the body, I hardly recognize them. They are never perfect, at least, not as they initially appeared to be. But I do believe a lot of the problem is my obsession with perfection. It’s one of the main reasons I never get anything done, and why I’m unable to find peace in anything I create. More often than not I always feel like I can do better. That I can word what I’m trying to say in such a way that it will without a doubt touch someone who needed to hear those exact words in the exact way that I composed them. I need for my words to mean something, instead of just collecting dust in my closet or sitting in a ‘drafts’ folder on my computer.

I’m saying all this because I think I finally found a notable comparison to how he makes me feel. I’ve tried time and time again to describe the feeling that comes with the pain of not being able to have someone beside you when you need them, or feeling completely helpless to get them to even answer you. There’s a silent and lonely desperation in reaching out to someone who only ignores you in return. I never feel in control when it comes to him, he simply does what he pleases. It’s very similar to being trapped in a prison cell. One that he passes by occasionally only to make sure that I’m still there, that I haven’t escaped. The cell’s bars allow me to see everything I can’t touch or control, so I observe. And I obsess. I’ve done this for nearly five years now. I’ve cried more times because of it than I have about anything else that has happened in my life. Dead relatives, dead friend, losing my home, never ending domestic issues… the list goes on, and the numbers simply don’t compare. I’ve been locked in a cell. But more recently that cell has begun to feel more and more like a casket. The walls are closing in, and there is very little room to breathe. There may even be some soil coming in through an unidentified hole filling in the empty spaces little by little. I say this because regardless of which metaphor you care to use or what language you prefer to say it in, the fact remains: I am trapped. I am in a dark and tightly enclosed box screaming at the top of my lungs and he hardly even flinches. He turns a blind eye to my suffering, just as he always has. And I’ve grown immune to many aspects of this pain. But once you’re being deprived of oxygen to the extent that you’re growing more and more afraid… immunity is no longer a relative term. I’m being buried alive. And in all honestly, I’m starting to get too tired to scream or fight anymore. The desperation and claustrophobia continues to worsen my anxiety and gives me more reason to self medicate, which I do. I sleep as much as a I can to remain elsewhere, and I numb myself when need be. I do what I have to do to not lose myself, to give up, or break down entirely. I’m buried alive… and I can hear him up above unknowingly shoveling the dirt.