I guess there’s something addictive about keeping your struggles to yourself, though it’s one of the hardest things a human being can do. You grow to understand that everyone’s going through something troubling, and so you choose not to burden anyone with more of your own. It should all eventually be over, you believe, and the thought of someone asking you about its details afterwards and you having to retell the same (heart-aching) stories after you’ve been trying to forget, makes you content with simply choosing to go through everything on your own. But then it starts getting louder inside your head. And you realize that besides having to fight through your own battles, you still have to deal with people’s mathematically incorrect notions; those inconsiderately implying that since you so obviously do not complain, therefore you are not supposed to be in pain. Their expectations of you then start rising to a whole new level. And sometimes you watch as others complain, and you feel bewildered at their ability to effortlessly share their pains this way. Because at some point you just stop knowing how to do it yourself. Yet what you hardly realize is, it probably takes them twice as much effort to be this open about the things they share. Which makes you wonder; do you really keep those things to yourself because you do not want to unnecessarily burden others, or are you slowly and dangerously getting addicted to building walls, and making homes out of their very-well hidden corners?

Basma Zaki