For the longest time, I did not validate the pain I felt inside me. I felt broken, but I didn't dare make a sound. Ignoring it didn't make it go away. Instead, it became bigger and bigger till it became a whole other person living inside me. Choking me from time to time. Tugging at my heart, hurting my nerves. Ever since I was a child, I was taught that whatever we go through, there are people who are going through much worse. As I grew up, it became more real as my closest of friends began to suffer from life altering grief and trauma. I have been in awe seeing them navigate their dreams amidst magnanimous heartbreak. All this while the ache I felt inside me, kept getting louder. Unable to ignore it anymore, I began getting angry at myself. Shouting at my pain, cursing it with hopes that it would crumble to my words of hate and repulsion. "There are people around you who have it much worse than you, how dare you be this pathetic and immature?" "You're being ridiculously needy, get your shit together." "There are people who are going through back breaking trauma and you're the one who wants to kill yourself?" "You have absolutely no strength to exist in this world if you can't be grateful for the life you have, you definitely deserve to kill yourself." It got louder and more cruel with every passing day till it stopped me from moving my body. Unable to contain the volume of this fight within me, I began sharing with people around me in my life that that being alone with myself has become a dark place I am scared to step into. That I feel suicidal but it only ends up making me feel repulsed with myself because people around me are struggling through much bigger emotional turmoils than I am. Some of them tried to understand what I'm feeling. Some said I should learn to be grateful, if I'm aware that my struggle is smaller. Some said I should be grateful for being privileged that my struggle is smaller. I should learn from my friends how to navigate tough emotions. And trust me, I am trying. Every day I try to contextualise how my pain is invalid or minute in comparison to my mother's pain, my sister's struggle, my father's grief, my friend's trauma, my other friend's shame, my other friend's loneliness. I tried every possible way to silence my pain. Last December, after being unable to shut this part of me for years, I went to see a therapist. Somehow, the first day I stepped into her office, I unravelled. It is very unlike me to trust someone this quick. But I did. It was almost instinctive, this faith that I'm safe here. The pain could suddenly exist, sit next to me, be as loud as it wants to be. For the first time, it didn't exist in comparison to anyone else's pain. Just mine. The way it is. After almost six months of continuously giving my pain a space to unmask itself and unmute itself, I am not as angry at myself anymore. I learnt that sharing my pain does not lessen someone else's pain. Validating my inner brokenness does not take away from the brokenness of anyone else. Feeling determined to kill myself as the best solution to this life does not in any way say that I do not care that the world around me is hurting too. We can all be crumbling together. We can all sit with our pain together. We can all be hurting together. My chaos cannot silence the world's chaos. My chaos does not want to silence your chaos. All I want is for my pain to feel free, for once, so that it can one day, heal and doesn't take up this much space inside me.