This highway’s dark and empty. Just miles and miles of endless road. I’ve got a sickness pounding in my head. I’m at the mercy of the ghost. What will it take to live, as if I would not another day? To live without despair, and to be without disdain? How can I instill such hope, but be left with none of my own?

I’m lost, this song has always helped ground me, it reminds me that when I can’t give hope to myself I can give it to others. Others with sickness pounding in their head.

Some days the sickness is overwhelming, and the ghost is deafening.

For those that may not understand the sickness is a few things for me, mainly complex-PTSD which gives me anxiety and panic attacks. My secondary diagnosis is major depressive disorder.

The ghost? The ghost can be so many different things, SI, past thoughts, childhood trauma, you name it there’s a ghost in my head reminding me of it at the most inopportune times.

Even though my medication blocks the ghosts voice some days, some days it’s just not enough. Those are the days I can’t give myself hope. At least not directly.

Sometimes giving hope to others with sickness in their heads can remind me to have a little for myself. To talk myself of that same ledge.

I’ve never known how to be kind to myself in the way I’m kind to others, some days I’m not sure it’s something I can learn.

Why do I find so much value in others lives and less in mine? I always have hope that other people can get better, they can be better, they can make an impact on the world in a positive way regardless of what that ghost says.

I guess I never realize that when I give others hope, I’m making a positive impact, regardless of what my ghost has to say that day.

Some day I hope to remove the ghost fully and completely. To do that I’ll have to fund a war in my own head. It’s present me and future me against past me, against past experiences, against all the trauma.

I’m not sure who’s going to win that war, but I’ll fund it as much as I can.

Where the skies are gold not gray, J.