Let’s face it.

The worst suffering is always your suffering.

The pain that really matters, is yours.

Nobody can see it, and nobody can truly understand it.

But you know it’s there.

It’s the intimate struggle that you and only you have to deal with, the exclusive confusion that creeps up on you and challenges you.

Your dirty little secret.

Sometimes it’s totally overwhelming, and other times it’s nothing but a faint, threatening buzz in the back of your experience.

Today I want to acknowledge your pain.

Not because I know it as you do, but because I know it as I do.

I know about the suffering you literally can’t escape from.

I know about the crippling insecurity that doesn’t make sense to anybody else.

I know what it’s like to be in a claustrophobic mental room where your only companion is the monster called Doubt, hiding in the shadows.

It’s not yours, but it’s LIKE yours.

My pain has been with me for decades, I tried to escape it, suppress it, and drown it in alcohol, but it always returned.

Just like yours.

Your pain is the worst pain there is, without a doubt, because it’s the most direct, most unflinching agony in existence, and there’s no place to hide.

You alone have to face it, while you pretend to live a normal life.

That’s why I admire you.

I admire your resilience and your toughness.

I admire everything you do regardless of what’s going on inside you.

So let’s face it.

YOU are the real hero in your life.