TW: Some suicidal ideation, mild (?) self-harm allusions/references/words.

(Sorry for all the TW's. I don't want you to take this as me being in a bad/rough spot, no matter if I am or not. But I feel I should warn viewers, readers. I think these TW's for this one are fairly mild but... not completely. Certainly they are there- the content warranting them, that is.)

I've heard some of the arguments, responses, reassurances or caveats to minimizing one's (or another's) struggle. Things like the counter to "other people have it [much] worse" being "there's always someone who has it worse," or "every struggle is valid" (more paraphrased), or something.

Still, when others validate or acknowledge that I am *struggling*, I can't really acknowledge it myself. I fear hyperbolising (for lack of a better word) my supposed struggle, my life, my so-called "pain." Is it pain, struggle, when the pain is self-inflicted without reason? When the struggle is caused by endless self-reflecting? Like that artwork (Salvador Dalí's The Face of War, from an internet search that took longer than usual) with the face in the eyes and the mouth, the fractal, the head that goes on forever? Recursion, repeating, cyclical thinking. Spirals, not Fibonacci ones. As they are not "beautiful," to the eyes of Them. Yet do They even know beauty beyond Them?

And there I go, implying things I do not know for certain and perhaps not with any degree of reality.

Back to the topic, the topic at hand, my hands. Yes, both. I fear I have not struggled, where is the evidence? I say sometimes that I hate myself, yet oft - or, maybe it depends on the mood - reluctance, unsureness (?). What do I hate? I don't feel anything, really? How can I hate? I don't really think, I don't care much for myself, I don't think anything, I don't think about myself at all, so why did I hate myself? Then I think back to the guilt and all the pain it has caused me (a sentence written hesitantly- haltingly, for a better word [?]), and am reminded - if faintly so - of the reason.

Am I trying, here, to write another... meaningful piece? I hope not, but likely I am; trying to continue the Success Streak. Sigh. I think I have said this before, but I feel like my life is a sigh, at least in moments like these.

Guilt. Perhaps in moments like these I am repressing it, as I recall... not quite wanting to live with myself. I could not have lived with what I had done, I don't think. It would have been made better had I known, if I knew, other things- things I feel I am fabricating, grasping at, not even imagining (as that would make them more real). I am not going to name these things here, likely not to anyone anytime soon.

It pains me - a good sign, perhaps, of the empathy I thought I had lost - to think of it, of what it may have done/has done, permanently. I try to tell myself things to lessen it, yet then I think back to it, always. Always.

Perhaps an alternative title for this work/post could have been "Guilt/Guile" or something similar, a play on those words, though one not-so-cliché or dumb.

As that fits, I think.

I feel deceitful when others feel I am suffering or have suffered- a conclusion likely wrought, informed, from my potential lies. How do I express without causing this? Without lying? How do I express, when I feel the majority - or perhaps just part - of my experience is made-up by me? I convince myself of things unlikely to be true- about myself and others, Them. Yet what if they are? Yet that means they are likely not.

So, what is my "struggle"? What suffering have I or am I enduring? Is it the self-inflicted pain with no cause, no reason, other than simply to do it- perhaps hiding a selfish reason? Is it my empty childhood that They say was the best they could do, was not bad, was rife - or at least containing - opportunities, experiences, interactions? Is it my sleeping, how I stay up with little reason, even when tired? Is it my mind - my thoughts - my overthinking, my struggle to know myself? And there I have used the word, struggle, somewhat automatically. Is it the brainfog, the haze, whatever this may be? Is it what I have convinced myself exists? What I cannot remember, even what they say? What I convince myself of yet cannot bring myself to believe or acknowledge? What I ignore, repress, shove away, shake out of my head, bury? Am I suffering from loneliness, or from rejection, betrayal- however perceived? Am I suffering from trying to remember, trying to forget, trying both and failing? Perhaps there is nothing to remember, and I cannot forget.

So many hypotheticals, etc. I've been told stuff about these.

I do not know, I can't think of what my struggle may be. Do others see it so clearly, or are they simply hearing and seeing my spoken evil?