All Too Familiar

Today

Driving a familiar route. Pulling into an all familiar car park, although being able to find a space, which isn't so familiar as it used to be so busy.
Sitting in the car with a familiar feeling in my stomach, in my heart, in my head, creating a tingle in the back of my eyes, and a shake in my hands.

I lock my car and walk towards the familiar building, walk through the familiar automatic doors and then press the familiar doorbell to be let inside.
I smell the familiar smell inside, a really clean smell. I notice the familiar silence, and just hear the clicking from the buckle on my right boot.

I inform the lady on reception that I'm there and go and sit on the familiar chairs. I can hear someone talking in one room, and hear footsteps down a corridor, a door buzzer go and someone walks through one of the security door, footsteps again as the person heads across the reception area, scans their security card, and walks through another security door.
Silence.
I can hear someone in a nearby room, I feel uncomfortable at being able to hear them, I'm glad I'm not in there.
I listen for the footsteps and buzzer again, waiting for an unfamiliar face.
I hear it, we say hello, we walk through the familiar door, down a familiar corridor and into an unfamiliar room. I sit in a familiar chair and for an hour talk about familiar things.

Four years of the same thing. Pouring my heart out to different people. To strangers.
I have no problem writing it down. It's easy writing it down. But actually speaking the words, telling people the deeper things, the things I haven't written about, is extremely hard.

I wonder how many times I have to talk about these things. How many more people I'll have to open up to.
How many times will I have to tell people about the odd, extreme images in my head, the thoughts, about my seriously bad luck when it comes to friendships, the fact I am lonely, the fact that my own dad has made me feel worthless and unimportant for 13 years.
The fact that I can't trust anyone, that my self-esteem is so low that I doubt everything about myself.
How many times do I have to talk about the fact that I am sometimes scared to leave the house because I think something awful is going to happen? The fact that I can't bring myself to take my own children to the park, that I believe an animal at the zoo can escape from an enclosure and attack me.
How many times do I have to tell people about my embarrassing overeating? The fact that food makes me feel better, yet at the same time has created this monster that I don't recognise when I look in the mirror.


All too familiar surroundings, all too familiar appointments, all too familiar conversations, all too familiar emotions and feelings.
Alone, and it feels all too familiar.