I understand.

For me, the difficulty was finding a way out of the hole, out of the pain, out of the aching feeling the ache would always ache. It took work and I was exhausted and didn't want to do it. It took vision but I couldn't see beyond the immediate darkness. It took courage but I was pommeled, a victim who was bullied and abused and raped. My very core was decimated. Life WAS messed up. Life WAS painful. I was hurting myself because hurting myself gave me a release. Bleeding was a focus. But one day, I noticed an old wound was healing. My body knew how to repair itself, despite myself. I ran away to see if I could do that psychologically, too. I went to a new place where nobody knew me, nobody knew my history, my struggles, my family, my religion, my sexuality, my talents, my temper, or my dreams. I could Just Be Me and figure out who the fuck that was. Pan for the gold flecks within. They had to be there, didn't they?

It took a long time. Longer than I thought I could possibly endure. One day, someone noticed I was wearing a smile. I didn't even realize it. They said something in my eyes was clearing, like clouds were moving past. Being noticed in that way, calmly, for a quiet smile—it was the first pinprick of light, a small and distant star on an endlessly long, relentlessly dark night. That pinprick eventually grew into a cluster, a moon, and one day the sun itself.

I look back now, three decades later, and wonder how I survived any of it. But I did. And my life has been full on this side of it, stuffed with love and humor and happy experiences. IT'S NOT WITHOUT ITS PROBLEMS, but now I'm aware enough to hold an appreciation for all of it. Even the muck.

So I agree with you, any chance at relief. I cannot speak to your experience. For me, it's about living in the relief of knowing that life is still messy and painful, but I've discovered a strange value in that. A power. Now I can own it, instead of the other way around. I know I can leave whenever I want, but I choose to believe in the sun, even when it isn't shining.