Do you sit
In the dark
In a corner

Do the walls
Protect and shelter
Or are you cornered

Are you resting
Are you hiding
Are you crying
Are you smiling

Are you lying
Telling yourself
It's one
When you know
You know
The other is true

Do you huddle
The walls physical incarnations
Of your mental barriers
Or mental obstacles

But, even then
There is nothing physical
No walls
No corner
The darkness
Only internal

But

do you hide
in a corner
in the darkness
within?

Does the world see your smiles and believe them? In reality, behind the upturned mouth, are you huddled down against that world? Against barriers only you can see or feel?

Do you know, really, those barriers are only constructs of your own mind, and they're not real? Knowing this doesn't make them less real, though, does it? Even if your reasoning mind tells you there's no substance to the feelings or thoughts that haunt you like spectres from the graveyard of your emotion, it doesn't mean they don't make you afraid. Or sad. Or desperate. You can still feel as if you need to hide away, putting up those walls for protection.

What the world sees isn't always what is actual there. Pain and disabilities, physical and mental, can be invisible to everyone else.

Last week, I was given a really dirty look by a woman at the supermarket because she saw me park in the disabled bay. She didn't see the badge in the window of my car or my walking stick. She saw a fit-ish looking man with tattoos, sunglasses and a t-shirt, not someone huddled over and barely able to walk. In some places, as I don't appear disabled, jokes are made of it. Or I'm seen to be overreacting. Or the stick is for the image and will be gone soon.

Yeah, it will. To be replaced at some point by a chair.

This is all physical, but the image is that I'm fine. They don't see the pain or the meds or the money spent on an electric bed or better sofa or car. So, it's not real. Nor is the battle I have with myself about that image. Or my self confidence. Or self worth.

So. Do your inner and outer selves match? Or is one a Dorian Gray painting of the real you?