Story A Worried Souls’ Manifesto 2: Pain is the Only Truth

[SatinSoul]

— A Serialized Story written by SatinSoul —

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NOTE: This is not a manual, a treatment plan, or professional medical advice. I am not a doctor. This is my personal raw, unfiltered, ongoing soul-searching story. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't.

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A WORRIED SOULS' MANIFESTO
Chapter 2: Pain is the Only Truth​

The Abyss wasn't just a hole I fell into; it was a cathedral I built for myself.

When you live in misery for a decade, you stop looking for the sun. The sun is a myth, a blinding white lie told by people who have never seen the clouds break. Instead, you learn to read by the lightning. Trauma becomes your art. The jagged, electric flashes of pain are the only light you have to see by, and eventually, you start to think the lightning is beautiful. You start to think it's the only thing that's real.

I didn't just "have" depression. I was depression. It wasn't a seasonal cold or a phase like Mom predicted; it was existing with broken DNA. It felt like the very blueprints of my soul had been printed in ink made of lead and ash. To imagine myself without the misery felt like imagining a skyscraper without a frame. If I took away the pain, I was convinced the whole building would just... vanish.

This is the Gravity of Validity. We hold onto the pain because weight feels like importance. If I am the poor tragic girl trapped in the gears of her own misery, I have a role. I have a story. I have a reason to be looked at. But if I'm not her? If I'm just a person standing in a grocery store line, worrying about the price of eggs and the smell of the morning coffee? Then I am just... Boring… like everybody else.

The "Groundhog Day" is the greatest threat to my misery. If I am okay, I am unremarkable. I am just another face in the crowd, and for someone whose only personality trait of significance has been surviving the unsurvivable, that future feels like a second death. No, even worse than death. It would be never ending hell. I was a VIP in my own misery. I had a front-row seat to the evolving catastrophe. Having an okay day feels like being permanently demoted to a background extra in a movie I used to star in.

And then there is the Stagnant Ideal. There is a spiteful, stubborn part of me that refuses to feel good because of the shitty therapist. Yes that one, the one that was totally unqualified for the job, and just figured talking for an hour is easy money. The "just go for a walk or try breathing exercises" type. The one who never took the depth of your trauma seriously.

To feel good now feels like an admission that they were right. It feels like a retroactive betrayal of my own history. If I allow myself to be fulfilled, does that mean it wasn't "that bad"? Does it mean I was just overreacting for twenty years?

Choosing to stay in the "debris of what could have been" feels like the only way to protect my integrity. I keep the wounds open because they are the only proof I have that I was hurt. I stay in the dark to prove that the light was a lie. I stay broken to win an argument with a ghost who isn't even listening.

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NAVIGATION
☜︎ Prior Chapter | Next Chapter ☞︎

THE COMPLETE MANIFESTO
1. Annual Breach of Contract
2. Pain is the Only Truth
3. Dissonance of Love
4. Infiltrating the Future
5. The Living Memorial

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Note: These chapters are being released on a staggered schedule (every 2 hours to prevent flooding). If a link below isn't active yet, check back shortly. Story split into separate threads to prevent a wall of text.
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