from a friend

Fewer things in life are truer than heartbreak or workache. The stress of one can often lead to the other. Blame can be apportioned, but is probably beside the point. Cause is often indeterminate and unhelpful in any case.

But finding strength, gathering yourself, moving on - that's hard. And harder still if you don't allow yourself time to grieve. There is no weakness in feeling sad, no weakness in being melancholy. Better sadness and melancholy than false cheer and fake mirth.

It isn't about weakness, it isn't about being in control. There's a freedom to curling up and bawling like a newborn babe. Because that's when sadness leaves and the pain really sets in - like lancing a boil before it is infected. I can't even fathom what you're going through, because it is probably different than my own experiences, each one is different.

But I know one thing: pain. Its never the problem, its the warning sign. And to fight it, to ignore it, is to ignore the fact that your body, your brain, your heart is telling you that something is wrong. Pain is not an itch, it doesn't go away if you ignore it, it is a problem that must be dealt with, must be accepted. There is no fighting pain, only acceptance. Fighting merely drives it deeper, makes it worse, festers it in places where it shouldn't. To accept it is to understand that something is wrong, to respond to yourself, "I'm listening", and to find out what your body needs to cure it.

Sometimes all pain needs is that, to be acknowledged.

I don't know what you're going through, and I won't say I understand, but I understand depression in all its forms. I've been there, probably am still there - and I'm not just saying this, my doctor says it too. I'm not saying that you have it, but to show you that I understand melancholy. The pessimism of something deeper, darker and tiny but infinitely black.

I fought it for a long time, but in the end lost. And it was in the losing that the healing could finally begin. Because until you've hit whatever bottom that can be hit, you can't really find the top again. Acceptance is the key to anything. Realizing that there's nothing wrong with you, but that you're just grieving for time lost and energy wasted and stress and life in general.

To move on you must accept. Peacefully at best, going down fighting at worst. But acceptance must always come before any progress can be made.

It's human to breakdown, human to want to just curl up and tell the world to go away for awhile. No one's asking you to be more than human. There is no weakness there.

A young man I met online once told me it wasn't selfish to be happy - to be myself, to choose my way. But it seems to me that this young man seems to think that it's selfish to be unhappy. You may have all the reasons in the world to be happy - fame, fortune, friends. But if that isn't what you need at the moment, then it isn't. Accept that. Don't just understand it. Let yourself touch bottom for awhile, then only bring yourself up for air.

And finally remember that behind every corner, when you need them to be there, there's still someone who cares.