The Things People Don’t Talk About

People don’t talk about what it feels like when it’s the middle of the night. and you’re talking to yourself again, replaying conversations you wish had gone differently, replaying the things you can’t forgive yourself for. They don’t talk about the way silence grows louder in the middle of the night, how it presses down on your chest until it feels hard to breathe. They don’t talk about the holes we dig in our own minds—sometimes out of pain, sometimes out of fear, sometimes because we’re just so tired of carrying what no one else seems to see.

People don’t talk about how hard it is to try to be yourself when your brain keeps telling you that you’re not enough. How every smile can feel like a mask, every laugh an act, and how exhausting it is to feel like someone else is living in your skin. They don’t talk about how terrifying it can be to wonder if anyone would notice if you slipped away.

But here’s what needs to be said: you are not alone. Even if you feel like no one could possibly understand, there are others who have stood in that same darkness, who have heard the same lies echoing in their heads, who have felt like giving up was the only way out. And even if people don’t talk about it enough, it doesn’t mean your struggle is invisible or unworthy of being spoken.

I want to know everything you don’t say out loud—all the things you bury because you think they’re too heavy for anyone else to carry. Because here’s the truth: someone can carry it with you. A friend, a counselor, a stranger on the other end of a hotline. The thoughts that feel too big, too dangerous, too messy—those are exactly the ones worth bringing into the light.

The world doesn’t talk enough about the invisible battles. About how strong you have to be just to keep breathing sometimes. About how much courage it takes not to give up. About how mental illness is not weakness, and about how suicide is not a selfish act but a desperate attempt to end unbearable pain. People don’t talk about that.

But maybe it’s time we do. Maybe if we start naming the silence, someone else won’t feel like they have to suffer in it alone. Maybe if we speak the unspoken, we can remind each other that healing is possible, that life can still hold beauty, and that even in the darkest nights, there is always hope for morning.

Because people don’t talk about it enough. But we need to.