— I keep making the same deal with myself. — What deal. — That I'll keep fighting my own head, keep showing up against it every single day, for as long as there's even one person left who trusts me. Not for myself. For them. — Why does it have to be for them and not for you. — Because I've tried the version where it's for me, and it doesn't hold. I say I want to get better for my own sake, and some quiet part of me just shrugs at that. I'm not convincing enough of a reason to myself. I never have been. — But someone else's trust is. — Somehow, yes. If I know there's a person out there who actually believes in some version of me, who's built a little bit of their own footing on the assumption that I'll keep showing up, that's the thing that gets me out of bed on the mornings my own reasoning can't. — That sounds like a lot of weight to put on someone else. — It probably is. I don't think they know they're carrying it. I don't think anyone who trusts you realizes that their trust has become the actual structural support holding someone else together some days. — What happens if that trust wasn't there anymore. — I don't let myself finish that thought all the way. I get close to it and pull back, because the answer feels too dangerous to actually sit with. I think, without exaggerating, that losing someone's trust in me would matter more than losing to my own head ever could. — Why would betraying that be worse than losing to yourself. — Because losing to myself is private. It's a defeat only I have to know about, only I have to carry. But betraying someone's trust, actually proving them wrong for believing in me, that damage doesn't stay contained. It reaches them too. It becomes something I did to another person, not just something that happened inside me. — So you fight for them. — I fight for them. Every day I don't feel strong enough to fight for myself, I borrow their belief instead and use it like it's mine. It's not the healthiest engine, probably. But it's the only one that's ever actually worked. #щп #щитпост - @llfocus