It isn’t hard to find ways to keep the existential dread at bay. That just requires staying insanely busy. If you stay busy enough, then there isn’t time to think about how pointless life is. But if you pause, for even a millisecond, you realize that being busy, being in the world, makes the loneliness worse.

See, it isn’t being around people that is inherently exhausting. It’s being around people but not feeling connected with those people that drains you. It’s the feeling of being actively disconnected from them. It’s in the act of trying to connect and constantly being ignored, or rebuffed, or disparaged for your attempts, like you are always doing exactly the wrong thing. It’s the energy you pour into learning about others, being curious about them, showing them care and concern, but having them not show the same desire to learn about you.

And over time you shrink. You internalize that disregard because it makes you feel unworthy, unimportant. You believe that you don’t deserve to take up space, that what you are isn’t valued in this world, that it doesn’t belong, that it is a glitch. You are a bug, not a feature in the operating system that is society. You will never fit in because you were never meant to, your mere existence creates dissonance, upsets the cosmic balance.

Once upon a time you were strong. Once upon many, many, many times you collapsed and dissembled and then rebuilt. You were resilient, optimistic, a survivor. You collected stories and reframed the narrative into your own personal collection of inspiration porn. You re-cast yourself as a badass warrior in your hero’s journey — a hero — never a victim. A fucking warrior! Each time you were felled, you rose again, determined to persevere, to do better, to be stronger and smarter the next time around. To be grateful for the experience, the lessons, the new coping mechanisms, and the fact that you lived to fight another day. So, you adjusted your armor and embraced each new reality, boldly setting out upon the next journey with all the conviction in the universe that, this time, this time would be different. The truest of true believers.

The world, however, didn’t care. It didn’t care that you had done the work of rebuilding. It didn’t care about the courage of your convictions, the love in your heart, the empathy of your soul, or your need to connect. The world still saw your weakness, your vulnerability, your empathy, and your desire, and found new and different ways to exploit them. The world saw your determination and said, “challenge accepted” and it set out to destroy you for good. This time, it ain’t playin’. It has called forth the four horsemen of the apocalypse and has Lucifer himself waiting in the wings.

Now, up has become down, and left has become right, and everything is cognitive and emotional dissonance. My guardian angel has collapsed upon a fainting couch, and my internal system is a cacophony of car alarms, and barking dogs, and death metal, and someone, somewhere is screaming. It’s madness and it is driving me mad. I can’t think. I can’t catch my breath. I’m externally frozen, all while internally everything is panic and chaos and disorder and I’m pretty sure there are tigers roaming free and they are trying to get out through the center of my chest.

Underneath it all, there’s a voice. A single voice, tiny, but insistent: “You are a survivor.” It keeps repeating, “You are a survivor,” despite the panic and the chaos and the disorder. It is determined, resolute, convinced of its truth. It is largely ignored amid the internal crisis. When noticed, it is mocked, ridiculed, and dismissed. Can it not see the reality that surrounds it? We are not surviving, we are drowning, and when up is down, and left is right, there’s no way for us to get to the surface. Our internal compass has been compromised, busted, broken, shattered, destroyed. We can’t save ourself again, and no one is coming to save us. Maybe they don’t care, maybe they can’t accept that we are drowning, or maybe they are afraid they will drown with us. Whatever the reason they don’t see us, they weren’t interested in forging a connection with us, and they certainly aren’t going to reach out a hand to save us now. No one is listening, and the harder we try to be heard, the farther away they get.

The voice, undeterred, continues: “You are a survivor.” It continues, though it knows we are tired of surviving. It knows how close to the edge of not surviving we are. It knows we want to give up, to allow the waves to carry us away. It knows that it is contributing to the dissonance, a lone dissenter in the burned-out, overwhelmed, hollowed shell that we’ve become. A system that only sees that survival isn’t sustainable alone. That survival, under these circumstances, is just a slower version of dying. And if that is the best we can do, then let’s skip to the end already. If that annoying voice would just shut the fuck up already. We’ve become accustomed to the car alarms, the barking dogs, the death metal, and even whoever that is that keeps screaming. It’s the tiny, grating, constantly toxically positive voice that we just can’t bear. Please, please make it stop so we can get on with giving up.

Yet, the voice continues: “You are a survivor,” for the voice knows its purpose.  It knows that in times of darkness, when the light cannot be seen, that it is the light. It knows that though it may be little, and though it is alone, it has hope for all the tomorrows. It knows the story isn’t finished yet. It knows that its faith alone is enough. That even when you don’t want to be, you are, and always will be, a survivor.