I can still smile at work while feeling privately absent from the whole day

Dear Delyara, From the outside, I am fine enough. I answer. I function. I even say the right warm things at the right moments. But inside, there are days when I feel like I am standing several feet behind my own life watching it continue through habit. That distance has become more familiar than I want to admit. It frightens me more than dramatic breakdown would, in some ways. Because it’s respectable. It can go on for months. People praise your strength while you quietly stop feeling fully present in the life that strength is supposedly helping you live. I don’t want to disappear that way. I’m afraid I already have in some corners.