Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

A poem

by a white man in his thirties

with undiagnosed depression— undiagnosed because he’s afraid of seeing a therapist and discovering that problems are deeper, more destructive than he thinks they are—

who works through his feelings and insecurities in his writing; 

who buries himself in work because it’s the only coping mechanism he knows for quieting the spiral inside his head;

who puts the needs of other people ahead of himself, telling himself it’s the polite thing to do, when really he believes he is not worthy of the time, effort, and support everyone else is.