The Price you Pay to be Strong.

        Quite recently I've been in a sort of funk. I've come to realize that within the gay community, every LGBT member has a way of coping with the world. Some turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, and so on. Some find good outlets. Some get angry. Some get depressed. But every single one of us finds a way to cope with the world, because it's impossible for us to not do so when we are so widely unaccepted. Granted, it's changing. It's changing big time out there. But the fear of being punched in the face when we walk out the door, or being harassed in our workplace, or being made fun of on a constant basis never leaves us.

        Sometimes though I wonder if I picked the worst way to cope. In my efforts to make the world easier on me, I devalued myself. I removed the value in myself and placed that value in others. This devaluing of myself has caused an unrelenting and impossibly complicated depression. One where suicide is always on your mind, but never an option. One where you're always wearing a plastic smile, always fighting back tears, and never truly happy no matter the circumstance. It's left me cold and uncaring to myself. I can't find an importance in myself or in my place in the world.

        What it has done though is placed more values on others. Every issue I have, I fight for the issues of others going through the same thing. Every person who is made fun of, bullied, harassed, physically assaulted, raped, crying at night, or who kills themselves. I value them so much. The amount of care I have for every one of those people is paramount to anything else in my life. People are my life goals. All I want out of my life is to make sure that people are being treated equally and fairly. I don't care about myself. I don't care about myself at all. If someone told me I'm going to die tomorrow, it wouldn't phase me. I'd be more worried about how I was going to use that time to make sure something changed than the fact that I was going to die.

       I only worry if this is actually healthy though. What happens when you lose the value in yourself? When death is such an easy out but you aren't selfish enough to commit to it. What can come of my life if I don't spend time on me? Sometimes I worry that maybe I'm being too selfish. Because often I'll find myself talking about the issues I worry about so much, that I'm afraid people will think all I do is talk about myself. I literally count the amount of times I talk about myself in a conversation so that I can make sure I limit it. Is what I'm losing, the value in myself, worth the strength it takes to stand up and say No when people tell me how I should live my life? Is losing my self worth really worth it, to go through the agony of living every single day? Or am I completely overanalyzing all of this, and is this something everyone actually goes through? How can I know?

        I'm remarkably confused about life in general, especially about who I am and what I'm doing in life right now. College is looking more and more difficult the more I try to get into it. Financially I'm in a funk because on minimum wage, or a bit above it, it's still near impossible to make it on your own right now. I don't know what I'm doing, I'm stressed out, I'm depressed, I find myself crying almost every night, every day I cry on my way home from work because of my job. Everything is getting to me. How do I stay strong when I have nothing for me, because I've placed it all in everyone else. If I'm not talking to someone, I'm so alone. I have no idea what to do with myself. When I'm by myself, I'm more than alone. Who would of thought it was possible to even be more than alone.