Another appointment. A second opinion. Yet it all keeps coming back the same. They say I’m healthy, I’m still young. Just pushing 30 years old, “you’re still in your prime!”

But how is this my prime? When I feel the lowest I’ve ever been. When dark of night is stretched thin into the glow of twilight, another restless night. When my appetite shrinks into nothing. My focus, now dull. I’ve grown despondent. My joy exists only behind me, as every day is a struggling between where I am and where I want to be.

They suggest pills, “these SSRIs will fix you up after a few weeks once the correct levels are in your system.”

But I don’t want that. I want to be better. I want to be proud of who I am again. I spent far too much of my life trying to avoid being hurt, and it only lead to that very outcome.

I want to feel like myself again.