Given my neurotic tendencies, it's probably unwise for me to be up late and think. However, these are my thoughts, and it's better for them to be typed out and thrown onto the internet for anyone to read than for them to echo and whisper within my mind.

First and foremost, a statement that is as much a declaration to anyone who reads this as it is a state that I've denied for far too long that I am in:

I am lonely, and have been so for as long as I can remember.

At this point in my life, I don't know what the ultimate source of it is, as I'm not wanting for friends or social interaction. It's become my shadow, in a way- the loneliness is always there, regardless of the situation, regardless of how happy I am at a given moment, regardless of what I do to ignore it.

I suppose that part of the problem is the great difficulty I have with discussing how I feel, even to the people I consider closest to me, the people that I trust. My automatic response to any inquiries about my emotional state is a hasty "I'm fine", even if everything that I feel in that instant screams otherwise. Any talk of my own emotions triggers an unexplainably visceral and intense revulsion; I don't like it and never have.

At times I wonder if I'm alone in the degree of aloneness I feel all the time, or if everyone feels that way, with some people being better able to conceal it and cope with it that others. I'm not sure which scenario would be better.

As unpleasant and at times psychologically painful as it is, I don't know what I'd do if I weren't lonely in some measure. Like a case of Stockholm syndrome, it's managed to worm its way into my perception of myself and the complex fabric of my identity after all these years. Who would I be if it was gone? Would I recognize myself?

.....It's past 1 am. It would be wise if I tried to sleep.