I did a variant of the empty chair technique today, just in my own mind. Things that I wanted to say or do but never did. It was painful, to say the least. I felt myself slipping, within the space of minutes, into a depressive mood.

I've realized something: I don't believe it's clinical depression, I think it's grief.
Discussing this with myself, I say:
Grief for the Self you would be proud to be but feel so rarely gets to come out.
Grief for the more meaningful and engaged life that Self might be leading.
Grief for those whose lives might have been touched more positively by you being that person, but you aren't.
Grief you're not a more meaningful part of those lives.
Grief over the (assumed) death of possibilities.

Because you let fear, pessimism and insecurities reign in the stead of your aspirations.
Because you don't express how you really feel very often at all, not in word, and certainly not in deed.
Because you failed yourself and failed others.
Because you opted to obey cowardice.
Because you believe your regrets will just recur.
Because you tend to give up on your dreams and think your fears more real, even though you rage against it on the inside.
Because you truly care so much about it, you punish yourself over and over.

I am so, so sorry. I need to find my way back to myself. THAT is the aching hole inside: might have been, might be, if only... if only I had the courage to be Me. I've been in denial about it; now it's all flooding out.

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The Evanescence song, Bring Me To Life, sounds so apt today:

wake me up
bid my blood to run
can't wake up
before I come undone
save me
save me from the Nothing I've become



I'll be just fine, I need time to process all this. Possibility is alive and well; rumors of it's death are greatly exaggerated. I'm having problems effectively challenging my own insecurities, my behaviors are more self-defeating than I admit to myself, and I'm experiencing a not-so-wonderful state called self-discrepancy as a result. Feel free to Google.

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Fear: Don't post it, you're embarrassing yourself.
Me: I have just one final thing to say to you ... RUN. *clicks*