I feel most alone when I’m trying hardest to be normal

Dear Delyara, That is the truth I keep coming back to. Not when I’m physically alone. Not when the house is empty. The worst loneliness comes when I am in the middle of ordinary life, answering properly, smiling at the right moments, participating enough to keep everything running, and still feeling completely untouched in the deeper parts of myself. I think that’s why some days hurt so much by night. I spend the whole day being socially acceptable and emotionally absent from myself at the same time. Then when everything gets quiet, I suddenly feel the full distance between the life I performed and the life I actually lived inside. That kind of loneliness is exhausting because no one sees it happen. From the outside, I looked fine. I looked busy. I looked included. Inside, I felt like a ghost wearing good manners.