More internal dialogue
"Well, that's my life, it ain't much to talk about, but it's..."
"You know, you really fucking annoy me."
"What?"
"I'm telling you. It pisses me off. Your blase attitude. The nonchalance. The way you shrug off hardship without a second thought. You let pain wash over and off you like it never touches you. It's enough to give someone an inferiority complex, ya know? Makes us feel like we can't even complain, that nothing we'd go through would ever match up to what you've been through...and you know what? It sucks. I can't even feel properly sorry for myself when you're being a goddamn martyr on that giant cross up over there. A lesser person would run away from you, they wouldn't be able to deal with how insanely strong you seem."
"But I'm not strong at all, I'm weak..."
"And you know it. You know your weakness, you admit it, you face it, and you know it's there ready to trip you up. That gives you a different kind of strength altogether. You gotta know where a pitfall is in order to step round it."
"More like a minefield at this point, honestly."
"You're no saint, and you can be preachier than a whole gallery of nuns, but damn it all if you aren't strong in your own way. Someone weaker would have fallen apart already, but here you are."
"I had help. A lot of it."
"Everyone needs help. People who help you are part of your strength too. They give of themselves and it becomes part of you. You have to want to be helped, and people have to want to help you. It takes two hands to clap, and you met your end of the bargain at least."
"Broke it half a dozen times though."
"Still."
"Yeah. It's just...I don't feel like I deserve it."
"None of us do, kid. If we had to deserve help to receive it, the world would be a sorrier place than it already is. Don't kick a gift horse in the mouth."
"Now who's preaching?"
====================================================
I'm seriously my own psychiatrist.