The hardest part of my day isn’t waking up. It isn’t going to classes, or doing work, or getting yelled at, or making mistakes. It’s being incredibly happy with all my friends, my girlfriend, my family, everything, until I happen to stumble by a mirror. And stare directly into the eyes of my reflection and all that disappears. No longer am I happy because that quick glance brings me from the naive, joyful parts of my mind to reality. I see the part of me that everyone else in the world sees, and in that moment I figuratively go rigid. I become physically uncomfortable of the knowledge that what I saw in the mirror is in fact myself. I feel like swallowing a grenade so that when it explodes, millions of pieces of myself are thrown everywhere so no one has to look upon the disgusting whole of my exterior again. I think back to the day, the week I just experienced from an outside perspective, watching myself as I go about the day, and cringe at how embarrassing it must have been to observe me passing by, making idiotic comments, and the gruesome facial expressions I dared make. That is the hardest part of my day, and usually it happens more than once because I can’t look away. I must stare into my eyes and see the wickedness that lies beneath the ugliness. It is my punishment for existing. 

I always hate my feelings. I hate them because when I’m not letting people walk all over me and try to stand up for what I want, I feel like I’m wrong. And when I finally speak up about it, I usually am wrong.