Do you give yourself time to heal, or do you keep making yourself move forward?

I have forced myself to forget my own issues is lieu of not feeling like they are as valid as others’ problems. So I ignore them. I plant flowers over them and hope that no one notices the huge hole in my heart. I make everything look pretty so that no one has to look at my issues. But eventually, the flowers die because they are not growing on fertile ground; they are growing on sadness, anger, and anxiety. When they finally wilt into nothingness, people do notice my problems. People try to comfort me. People try to water my flowers so they bloom big and beautiful again. But they never look at the soil. They never try to understand why the flowers died in the first place. They just try to make me stop crying. Or buy me a drink. Or take me out for some ice cream so that I will have a smile on my face again. So in addition to planting the flowers in the first place to disguise my problems, other people force me to replant my flowers in rotten soil and the whole process starts over again.

This question made me think about myself in a way I hadn’t in a long time: vulnerable. I have left so many wounds open and festering that I am not sure how I haven’t bled to death yet. I have left myself open for more hurt and trial because I have not been taking care of myself. I put everyone else’s problems before my own, and when I finally break with the pain of my problems, people think I have gone crazy and don’t know how to deal with me. That’s the problem with always trying to be strong and resilient, when you’re not, people look at you differently. People expect you to be put together and know what is going on at all times, but more recently, I have felt so out of control that even the shame of telling people about my pain is starting to sound better than dealing with this pain all by myself.

I just wish I knew where to start, how to start, when to start, healing.