In these flashes of insight, I understand for a moment that one of the great dividends of darkness is an increased sensitivity to the light.

Some struggles are so solitary that they drown in words.

I'm getting less good at faking it. People in my family are noticing and asking what's wrong. My friends give me invitations to talk, to cry. I love them for their caring, but I want to run from it. I have lost their language, their facility with words that convey feelings. I am in new territory and feel like a foreigner in theirs.

The body remembers what your mind forgets.

It's enough just to speak when spoken to, to give some minimal reaction to a stimulus. But to actually be the stimulus doesn't even occur to me.

In these flashes of insight, I understand for a moment that one of the great dividends of darkness is an increased sensitivity to the light.

The bottom line is that my life has already almost slipped away from me. I have two choices: I can end it or I can fight like hell to save it.