What happened?

What happened to when I used to be strong?

Once upon a time, I didn't call someone up, crying, with a story about something that happened to me. I dealt with it, silently and alone. I didn't need anyone to agree with me in how I was feeling. I felt how I felt and that's what mattered, not what other people said about it.

Once upon a time, I hated the phone. I refused to call anyone, tell anyone anything that was wrong with me. I sucked it up and dealt with life by myself. I grew stronger by myself because there was no one's shoulder to cry on, no one to care that I was ever crying. I used to ask myself, "Why are you crying?" and then tell myself: "No one is around to hear." That made me stop. Why make a huge scene out of something when there's no one to care about you and your problems but you?

Once upon a time, I was strong. I took what the world threw at me and dealt with it. I didn't need to let anyone else into my world, my thoughts, my feelings. I could deal with things alone because that's how they came to me: they were for me to deal wiith alone. I didn't want to call any attention to myself, didn't want to, as my words were then, become a "sympathy bucket."

I didn't want anyone to feel sorry for me, to care about my problems and inconvenience themselves. Saying sorry was something that I always have done; I accidently say the wrong thing and the word "sorry" come flying after the wrong words. It's automatic; I apologize after everything that does hurt someone else and anything that might. I don't want to inconvenience anyone else with problems of my own.

I hate how I've changed, how I've let people in and let them get so close to me that now I can't deal with things alone. I feel so dependent and weak. If there's something wrong, I call someone and talk about it. I don't just deal with it myself the way that I used to. I used to take all my problems, my worries, my concerns, my issues and solve them myself, without the aid of anyone else, without anyone else's wasted time, or wasted sympathy.

The thing I hate most is that other people waste their lives on me, on helping me through something that I could probably get myself through alone. I hate how I'm not as strong as I once was.

I remember the days whenever I had no means of communication. All I had was my family and they needed me at home. I didn't go anywhere but to the park to think, to think the things through that I was in the middle of. I'd spend hours thinking, knowing myself fully: I knew what I wanted, what I felt, what I needed. I didn't have to call someone and ask them to help me, or to listen to me.

I used to listen to myself.

Now, it seems that all I do is depend on someone to answer the phone, someone to come over and watch me cry. I don't want to be dependent. I feel like I've let everyone inside of me, inside of me to the point where I can't function without them. I hate it. I feel so weak and alone with everyone so close.

I've felt this way before; I've had the feeling that everyone knows too much about me, that everyone's too close and they have the greatest potential of harming me. I have to remind myself that it's okay for everyone to be so close to me, but at the same time, I wonder if it's okay for me to depend so much on them..

There must be a median here. I need to either let people in and let them help me, but still know what I'm thinking; or solve everything on my own and then let people in and let them know what I've been going through. Yet, I know better..

I've been criticized before for not letting people inside. I let everyone know what they need to know, let them know things that don't matter to me very much, but I keep so much inside of me. I'm sure everyone's like this; everyone has secrets that they don't want to tell anyone, but when they tell someone, do they feel as if some horrible betrayal is about to come because they let some small piece of them outside of huge walls they had built up around them?

Maybe I'm just paranoid or maybe I've been inside walls alone, solving problems by myself, for much longer than is healthy. Talking to people, telling them things that are important and mean something more than the average conversation - I'm working on that.

I'm just so afraid of not having the person I depend so much on there anymore..

They tell me so much, I owe it to them to tell them somethings. I even want to tell them things, get myself out of my box. But it's scary.

I guess I'm just now learning to trust humanity with the things that matter to me. It's not a trust issue, exactly, it's just an inconvenience and dependency issue. I'm not sure what side of this issue to stand:

Do I rely on myself to solve everything?

or

Do I let others in to help me, letting myself depend on what they have to say?

There's probably a middle, but I don't know how to find it..

When I solved everything myself, I made walls around myself, made my problems just my own and didn't let anyone else in. After most of the problems had been solved, all the tears cried silently in empty bedrooms late at night, I still was inside of a box. By solving everything myself, I forced myself into a box, not letting anyone inside to help me, nor letting any of myself outside to the people who needed to see it the most.

I either have to rely on my faith in myself, or the faith I have in the mercy of humaity.

Was I really strong when I solved everything myself?

or

Am I strong now because I let people in, despite what they might do to me?

I wish I knew.

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