broken

Perhaps this is just my own perception and experience but I feel like the word “broken” has become very taboo in regards to it being used self-referentially. Especially in areas of mental health. To refer to yourself as broken is seen as an ill-fitting or overly dramatic, or needlessly harsh characterization what you might be going through.

But how else would you describe it when that is how you feel? Is it because we have grown so accustomed to discarding things that are broken? Do we now see broken as an impasse? If we extrapolate our terms for describing physical ailments and apply them to mental illness then broken doesn’t seem so incorrect. I broke my femur when I was eight years-old. It was treated. And it healed.

Colloquially I would refer to myself as heartbroken and that is understood, not necessarily questioned. Of course it’s not literal, as my actual heart is healthy to the best of my knowledge, but there is certainly much of my mental and emotional machination that is broken. It can be treated and healed. Maybe not as plainly as a broken bone is, but it is possible.

I guess this is all just overwrought semantics. Extra hard work I’m making for myself in a process that has nothing but hard work ahead. I keep hoping to find some new discovery, some new flash of inspiration. I look inward and follow the same paths over and over only to keep running into the same walls time and again. I know I need more help. I don’t know how I’m going to get it, but I know I can’t continue trying to fix it all on my own.