I just can’t tell anyone. I won’t. It’s embarrassing. It’s annoying. It’s too personal. They would look at me differently. They wouldn’t understand. They will judge me, and then I’ll be too exposed. This is my secret, and nobody else needs to know. I’m fine. I can take care of myself.

How often do you find yourself thinking about something you’re struggling with in life? How often is something bothering you? How often do you stay in that place- that hole of mental anguish- alone? Or, maybe you do reach out to someone and attempt to talk about it, but there’s always something you’re not saying. Perhaps you’re talking about someone else’s actions and how those actions made you feel, but you’re silent as to why someone’s actions made you feel that way. How often is the truth of most feelings the fact that you’re lonely, you feel like nobody really understands you, and you don’t know how to change any of it?

Hopeless- 1. a : having no expectation of good or success : despairing. b : not susceptible to remedy or cure. c : incapable of redemption or improvement. And hopelessness? To me it’s a suffocating sense of being; it’s a psychological realm that causes physical pain and mental conflict. It defines itself. It’s hopeless.

I haven’t figured out what it is, but somewhere along the way we learn to keep our deepest and most vulnerable feelings a secret. Perhaps it’s the old lesson of not airing your dirty laundry. Perhaps it’s the art of being respectful and having manners, never wanting to be inappropriate by bringing down the conversation with talk of personal struggles. Maybe it’s an act of self-preservation. To talk about your struggle is to admit a weakness, and we would rather be strong, superficial, and misunderstood than risk vulnerability, pity, and exposure. Regardless of its origin, this lesson is one we hold dear, a habit that is hard to break, yet one that should be destroyed as soon as possible.

I have always known how to talk about feelings. I often counsel friends and loved ones through their break-ups, help people get back on their feet during a hard time, listen, understand, and have always felt comfortable with whatever mess people need to turn into. I don’t judge. I am the ultimate glue and pride myself on being someone who can hold others together. As a writer, I even analyze feelings. I give them words, explore them, and then turn them into poetry in an attempt to understand them. I’ve done this for years. Recently, however, I’ve realized that I was never talking about my own feelings.

I could talk about my day forever. I could talk about the endless situations that I was in and how those situations made me feel. I would dwell on one particular problem, often involving a struggling relationship, and put my listeners through a daily replay of my inner monologue. Why would he say that? Why wouldn’t she care? How can they be so selfish? What is so wrong with me that I keep ending up in these situations? I would analyze and then reanalyze until I thought I had figured out how to move on, and then a few minutes later I would start over again. It was never satisfying. It never felt healthy or productive. And as much as I thought I was being open, I realize now that all the banter was my way of talking about what I was comfortable with so I didn’t have to address the rest of it, the truth.

The truth was I was lonely. I didn’t feel like anybody really understood me, or even cared to try to. Even deeper, I didn’t feel worth anybody’s real time to try to understand me, because I had no idea what there was to understand. I’ve talked about this before. To feel loved, understood, and accepted by other people, you have to start with yourself. You have to love yourself, understand yourself, and accept yourself. You have to KNOW that you are worth everything you want. The best part is, once you get there you no longer need other people to love, understand, or accept you. You are no longer looking for that satisfaction. Don’t get me wrong, though, they will absolutely fall in love, because self-love = happiness, and people are drawn to happiness.

The point here, though, is not another lesson on how to fix your loneliness. Instead, my intention is to discuss our pattern of keeping it a secret. When I was in that place, I didn’t talk about it because I assumed nobody else would understand. I assumed nobody else felt it, and as soon as I opened my mouth I would be ruining my image forever. I had this fear of people hearing everything I had to say and then just looking at me puzzled before responding “hmmm…I’ve never felt that.” And then what? I try to laugh it off? I try to act like it’s no big deal and we can just pretend I never said anything? No. At that point, I would be the puddle of a person running down the gutter that everybody else would jump over to avoid ruining their shoes. Right?

I still don’t know how common this feeling might be. Even writing this now, there’s that old voice in my head that is screaming “WE CAN’T TELL PEOPLE THIS!!!” But, “we” have to. In my opinion, the biggest problem with this feeling is that it leaves people with the impression that not only are they alone in their struggle, but they are also weird. They aren’t normal like the rest of functional and happy society. It’s just another thing that ostracizes them. The loneliness facilitates the feeling, and then the feeling perpetuates the loneliness. It’s a vicious cycle.

How do we break it? How do we escape? We rip it open, pour it out, speak up, and create the expectation for ourselves that we will no longer struggle alone.

Here’s what I’ve learned: I’m not alone. One of my mentors- a woman I respect dearly- once stood before a class of individuals who were trying to change their lives and said “stop thinking you’re special…right now… because you’re not.” She was right. You are not so special that you’re the only one to ever struggle with whatever problem you’re struggling with, and as soon as you actually start talking about your struggle, you’re going to learn just how common you are. You’re going to learn that you’re not alone. You’re going to learn that people have been studying your problem for years and have theories on what caused it and how to fix it, people have gone through your problem and have gotten themselves out of it, people are in your problem right now and still surviving, and some people are worse off than you are. The best part: you’re going to learn that you’re normal.

In my life, I have a new rule that I don’t struggle alone. No matter what problem I’m feeling, whether it’s an emotional breakdown or simply not wanting to go to the gym, I talk about it. It no longer lives deep within me, eating away at my well-being, and gaining power as a preciously protected secret. It’s immediately exposed in a 5-minute phone call or a simple text message, or a blog post, or a status update, and stripped of whatever control it may otherwise have had over my life. To my surprise, this simple rule has greatly reduced the struggles I carry on a daily basis to nearly zero. I’m not saying it’s eliminated all of life’s problems, but it has silenced the inner monologue and allowed my energy to be spent on healthier, happier, and more productive things. I now have super friends who literally know all my secrets. So, instead of spending my time trying not to give away any clues of loneliness or insecurity, I spend my time laughing, having fun, getting to know people, letting them get to know me, building relationships free of conflict, exploring, trying new things, and simply feeling good.

I highly doubt that I’ve stumbled upon the cure to all of life’s unhappiness- after all, I’m probably not that special. But, I have absolutely discovered the cure to my own unhappiness and I think that makes me a superhero. I encourage you all to discover your superpower and then use it to slowly change the world, even if it’s only your own.