It’s not romantic nor pretty,
the tears that trickle like an endless stream.
They differ in speed in a race to reach my quivering chin.
My mind races then slows to a sudden halt.
Do you ever feel an overwhelming emotion and then nothing?
Just nothing.
Like a heartbeat constantly changing beat.
My thoughts scream then whisper slowly.
I no longer fear them more than I welcome them.
My arms outstretched to tightly hold them close to my chest.
People break hearts.
They destroy reputations.
They sentence spirits to death,
and then perform complete destruction of souls.
Your thoughts echo people and they make choices for you.
Choices based on the opinions of people who break your heart.
Life is unpredictable.
You can’t control it.
Control is only an illusion to make it easier to sleep at night.
But this unpredictability can feel like being smothered.
It can make you feel powerless and then ambivalent.
Men appear to snatch it from you,
they tell you lies that you begged them to.
You asked them to.
Yet here I stand,
knowing control isn’t real for either of us.
Yet here I stand,
a creature obsessed with the illusion of control.
I am that person,
the one that tries not to,
but always manages to let people down.
That’s when the voices come,
that gentle hand appears on my shoulder.
It tells me people are better off without me.
That there is evidence to back this up.
And what exactly does that feel like?
Nothing.
It feels like nothing.
An endless nothing.
Just blank.
And it looks like nothing too.
You see I wear this smile like an actress,
to cover my pain.
But underneath my entire body fights with itself.
Scream.
Cry.
Say something.
That’s why I find isolation easier.
I can imagine living a sheltered life.
That way I’m no longer lying to others.
No longer lying to myself.
I feel loneliness trap me unexpectedly everyday.
It lingers for some time until I shake it away for a while.
As I write the word I am unconvinced it will ever go,
no matter how much I drag an eraser backwards.
Nothing left inside me feels able to fight.
I have no one and I can feel the water starting to rise,
it’s all around me.
I am beginning to drown under the waves of loneliness.
I reach for a hand,
but I can never quite hold it tightly enough.
I try to stay above water but I know I’m waiting,
waiting for the hurricane to hit.
Someone to add to my list,
which includes the people who have wronged me.
I’m an easy target,
and it’s open season.
As my body submerges into the deep blue,
I feel calm.
I don’t care if you want to knock me further into the water.
I don’t care if your hand pushes my head further in.
In fact,
I dare you.
Because no matter how much you try to take from me,
I hope you realise that you will forever leave with nothing.
I have nothing left inside me.
And if you try to collect the pieces of my broken heart,
let me warn you.
The edges are sharp and painful to touch.
They will make your eyes weep.
Blood will empty from your veins until,
just like me,
you have nothing left.
If your game is to break me in two,
you need to learn to walk away.
You won’t win.
Not because I believe you can’t break a person.
I know for a fact you can.
But you need to know that you can’t break what’s already broken.
And, honey, I was broken long ago.
Thursday, 31 August 2017
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Suicidal Thoughts.
What if the only way not to feel bad is to stop feeling anything at all, forever?
It's something I can't quite put into one sentence. Not one word can single it out. I could try to string the words together with a pretty bow but there's nothing pretty about the silent tears that fall down your cheeks. You can't romanticise the numbness as it seizes your whole body. The gasps sound so very desperate as you try to get up from the floor and you can't seem to find your footing anymore. You may have walked miles and climbed mountains but moving a millimetre feels too much. You wrap your arms around yourself as if to pretend you've got someone there. But as you open your eyes you notice there is no one to be found.
It's different for everyone but the outcome you crave appears so similar. Suicide can feel terrifying at some point but then suddenly it's this exciting dream. It's something that will confuse you if you've never felt this way before. Because of course it's human nature to want to live or so I've been told. You see, I get this feeling late at night and early in the morning. It manages to cloud that desperate need to want to grow and thrive. It makes me want to shrink and shrivel into the ground. To take up less space rather than encourage the world to see me.
Sometimes I tell myself I'm okay. I repeat it over and over in my head. It's constant. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm scared that if this stops, even for a moment, I will drown in all the reasons I'm not. And to me that's like each one of my organs failing resulting in this empty feeling on the inside. I've always covered up the darkest of situations with a smile. This is where the trouble began, with that innocent smile. Because now I struggle to allow it to falter. Even a little bit. And maybe this is why I feel like I don't actually exist. To others I don't have my own voice. I desperately want people to know me; not the stuff they think they know. The real me. The me with and without suicidal thoughts. The me who cried herself to sleep on the floor behind a locked door last night. But also the me that can genuinely smile and giggle. The one you can lean on for support and love.
I just think that staying alive shouldn't be such a exhausting task. It's draining to think about and plan my death every day. Or actively work to avoid it. The thoughts can come and go but for now it's all I can think about. Last night I was hysterical in my bedroom on my hospital floor. I banged my head against the wall in a desperate need to knock the urges and thoughts out of my head. Maybe to even knock myself unconscious. But it didn't work and I slept on the floor under my sink. I woke up in tears at the prospect of another day being me. Living. A doctor once told me as he stitched up my wrist that life isn't for everyone. And at first I was shocked but then I realised how true that can be. I've lost four people to suicide this year alone. And it hurts that they have gone but they must have been in so much pain. Tortured by their mind. I can sadly relate.
People tell me to try a little harder. Become a little more motivated and not to spend my days in bed and my nights awake under my sink. They tell me like it's easy. But I've tried. I have tried so hard to be the good daughter. The good patient that doesn't self harm. The best friend people would want. To be good enough. But I've failed each time. And then people leave or give up on me. I just wish I wasn't so easy to give up, you know? Missing people comes in huge tidal waves and a lot of the time it feels like I'm drowning. That my tears are as thick and endless as the sea. So I try not to care and love so much but I always do. I usually love the people who hurt me the most; I'm not a very good judge of character. And I tend to look at my scars a lot and I love them only because they have stayed with me far longer than most people have.
You know I used to walk along bridges late at night? I'd see the sky reflected on the gentle water. So calm and peaceful. It's a very long way down to the bottom and I used to tell myself I needed to let myself sink. To be smothered and hugged tightly by the water. And I used to buy blades and vodka. The vodka to numb the physical and mental pain. The blades to end my life. I'd keep them as a "just in case" solution. A lot of people with suicidal thoughts do this. Ironically this usually prevents a suicide because you have access to the means and therefore you feel safer. It's comforting to know you can do it if things got that difficult. I do understand that this is very hard to get your head around if you've never felt suicidal.
My main driving force behind suicide is love. Again sounds rather strange because I guess people often want to live because of love in it's various forms. However, I find the problem with love these days is that if someone tells me they love me, instead of feeling cared for, I just wonder how long for. Days, weeks, months, or years? I worry and maybe that's why I never fully believe in love. I'm too scared to. And if I'm terrified of love then my reasons to live are much smaller than someone who welcomes love with open arms.
It's something I can't quite put into one sentence. Not one word can single it out. I could try to string the words together with a pretty bow but there's nothing pretty about the silent tears that fall down your cheeks. You can't romanticise the numbness as it seizes your whole body. The gasps sound so very desperate as you try to get up from the floor and you can't seem to find your footing anymore. You may have walked miles and climbed mountains but moving a millimetre feels too much. You wrap your arms around yourself as if to pretend you've got someone there. But as you open your eyes you notice there is no one to be found.
It's different for everyone but the outcome you crave appears so similar. Suicide can feel terrifying at some point but then suddenly it's this exciting dream. It's something that will confuse you if you've never felt this way before. Because of course it's human nature to want to live or so I've been told. You see, I get this feeling late at night and early in the morning. It manages to cloud that desperate need to want to grow and thrive. It makes me want to shrink and shrivel into the ground. To take up less space rather than encourage the world to see me.
I just think that staying alive shouldn't be such a exhausting task. It's draining to think about and plan my death every day. Or actively work to avoid it. The thoughts can come and go but for now it's all I can think about. Last night I was hysterical in my bedroom on my hospital floor. I banged my head against the wall in a desperate need to knock the urges and thoughts out of my head. Maybe to even knock myself unconscious. But it didn't work and I slept on the floor under my sink. I woke up in tears at the prospect of another day being me. Living. A doctor once told me as he stitched up my wrist that life isn't for everyone. And at first I was shocked but then I realised how true that can be. I've lost four people to suicide this year alone. And it hurts that they have gone but they must have been in so much pain. Tortured by their mind. I can sadly relate.
People tell me to try a little harder. Become a little more motivated and not to spend my days in bed and my nights awake under my sink. They tell me like it's easy. But I've tried. I have tried so hard to be the good daughter. The good patient that doesn't self harm. The best friend people would want. To be good enough. But I've failed each time. And then people leave or give up on me. I just wish I wasn't so easy to give up, you know? Missing people comes in huge tidal waves and a lot of the time it feels like I'm drowning. That my tears are as thick and endless as the sea. So I try not to care and love so much but I always do. I usually love the people who hurt me the most; I'm not a very good judge of character. And I tend to look at my scars a lot and I love them only because they have stayed with me far longer than most people have.
You know I used to walk along bridges late at night? I'd see the sky reflected on the gentle water. So calm and peaceful. It's a very long way down to the bottom and I used to tell myself I needed to let myself sink. To be smothered and hugged tightly by the water. And I used to buy blades and vodka. The vodka to numb the physical and mental pain. The blades to end my life. I'd keep them as a "just in case" solution. A lot of people with suicidal thoughts do this. Ironically this usually prevents a suicide because you have access to the means and therefore you feel safer. It's comforting to know you can do it if things got that difficult. I do understand that this is very hard to get your head around if you've never felt suicidal.
Saturday, 19 August 2017
Where I Stood.
Saying goodbye is difficult.
It's one of the many life events people struggle with and let's be honest anything to do with change scares us. Factor in the loss of a person, or people in my case, and it feels like a part of you shrinks. That you're not whole anymore and you struggle to rationalise that this isn't permanent. That people will come and then leave behind those intolerable gaps. However, letting someone go doesn't mean a part of you is lost forever. It means that part of you changes. It has to. But the pain remains as a dull ache because that person mattered and they still do. Feelings don't disappear but they do fade or alter over time.
I've lost a lot of people in the last few years and some I've come to realise I may never get back. I always leave the door open for them in the hope that they might call and see me once more. These people mean more to me than living because connections form your life. And it's even harder when you don't completely lose them. You might get to see their faces in photographs which don't include you or you often see them in passing. But due to that decision to leave, you don't get to say anything to them and that increases the ache I spoke about which becomes a sharp throbbing pain.
For me the worst part is seeing them with someone else. That envy of another person standing where I stood. Listening to the same jokes I laughed at months before her. Seeing the way they smile and how much wider their smiles become compared to ours. But then if they are happy then surely they get to stand where I stood. Isn't that how it works? I know if I stood there the conversation would be different now; too much has changed. Smiles would be fake and laughter forced. But I don't know who I am without them; these people I let leave. I mean I did fight for them and it sometimes came across as desperate and needy even when I didn't want it to. But eventually I let them go because I know they wanted to and that they will find people who will lift them rather than almost drown them. You just can't stay once you know. Because knowing they want to leave and sitting across from them, trying to pretend they don't, often hurts more.
Just because it hurts more to stay it doesn't mean it's any less painful to let them go. Not all endings happen with waving hands and the loudest of goodbyes. Sometimes endings are made of teary eyes and the saddest of smiles. The ones that say we tried our best but in the end it didn't work out. Something went wrong and it's a mutual pain so really it's for the best to part our separate ways. I'm frequently reminded of the day I moved to a Women's Refuge with one suitcase when I decided to leave my family. I will never forget that moment when I realised I couldn’t live without them, nor will I forget the very same moment I knew I had to.
I'm still adjusting to it; this being alone feeling which I believed I would always handle. When you say your last goodbye you don't just lose that person, you lose the person you were when you were with them. The inside jokes. The clothes you chose to compliment their's. The way you did your hair. Even the things you wore because they bought them for you. The cinema tickets and the goofy photographs you absolutely hated them for being the one to take them and get the prints. Now they are stored in a box far out of your reach because you can't bare to even touch them yet. Or you worry you'll damaged them or lose them and then that's yet another loss. Some nights I try to remember how it felt to be loved by them. And on other nights I do my best to forget. It's a constant war between needing any reminders of their presence and wanting to forget them completely. It's all about wanting to destroy that pain. But in forgetting you lose be happy memories. Yes, you might lose the painful ones but also the beautiful life-altering ones. The ones that used to make those dark days a little brighter.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done is look at the way they looked at me with so much hate when once they looked at me with so much love. A family which was a unit broke apart and I will always feel responsible. And me leaving wasn't because of hate; it was because of love. I loved them enough to let them go. I said my last goodbye to my mother not so long ago after years of barely any contact. As the words fell from my lips I died a little bit more inside. That night I lay there in tears because I was alone. She wasn't there. And a part of me knew that maybe she never will be again. I can remember nothing but the words that she said to a friend once before, as I left the house in tears. You can have her. They were the most honest things to ever leave her lips. And I wish that she had lied.
Losing someone you love, well, it's something I can't quite put into one sentence. Not one word can single it out. I could try to string the words together with a pretty bow but there's nothing pretty about the silent tears that fall down your cheeks. You can't romanticise the numbness as it seizes your whole body. The gasps sound so very desperate as you try to get up from the floor and you can't seem to find your footing anymore. You may have walked miles and climbed mountains but now moving a millimetre feels too much. So you wrap your arms around yourself as if to pretend you've got someone there. But as you open your eyes you notice there is no one to be found.
I don't think I'll ever get over losing the people I love. But sometimes you realise you can't force someone to love you in the same way or the exact amount that you love them. You might never even hear the word 'love' roll off their tongue even when you say it every day. And somehow you've got to be okay with that eventually.
It's one of the many life events people struggle with and let's be honest anything to do with change scares us. Factor in the loss of a person, or people in my case, and it feels like a part of you shrinks. That you're not whole anymore and you struggle to rationalise that this isn't permanent. That people will come and then leave behind those intolerable gaps. However, letting someone go doesn't mean a part of you is lost forever. It means that part of you changes. It has to. But the pain remains as a dull ache because that person mattered and they still do. Feelings don't disappear but they do fade or alter over time.
I've lost a lot of people in the last few years and some I've come to realise I may never get back. I always leave the door open for them in the hope that they might call and see me once more. These people mean more to me than living because connections form your life. And it's even harder when you don't completely lose them. You might get to see their faces in photographs which don't include you or you often see them in passing. But due to that decision to leave, you don't get to say anything to them and that increases the ache I spoke about which becomes a sharp throbbing pain.
For me the worst part is seeing them with someone else. That envy of another person standing where I stood. Listening to the same jokes I laughed at months before her. Seeing the way they smile and how much wider their smiles become compared to ours. But then if they are happy then surely they get to stand where I stood. Isn't that how it works? I know if I stood there the conversation would be different now; too much has changed. Smiles would be fake and laughter forced. But I don't know who I am without them; these people I let leave. I mean I did fight for them and it sometimes came across as desperate and needy even when I didn't want it to. But eventually I let them go because I know they wanted to and that they will find people who will lift them rather than almost drown them. You just can't stay once you know. Because knowing they want to leave and sitting across from them, trying to pretend they don't, often hurts more.
Just because it hurts more to stay it doesn't mean it's any less painful to let them go. Not all endings happen with waving hands and the loudest of goodbyes. Sometimes endings are made of teary eyes and the saddest of smiles. The ones that say we tried our best but in the end it didn't work out. Something went wrong and it's a mutual pain so really it's for the best to part our separate ways. I'm frequently reminded of the day I moved to a Women's Refuge with one suitcase when I decided to leave my family. I will never forget that moment when I realised I couldn’t live without them, nor will I forget the very same moment I knew I had to.
I'm still adjusting to it; this being alone feeling which I believed I would always handle. When you say your last goodbye you don't just lose that person, you lose the person you were when you were with them. The inside jokes. The clothes you chose to compliment their's. The way you did your hair. Even the things you wore because they bought them for you. The cinema tickets and the goofy photographs you absolutely hated them for being the one to take them and get the prints. Now they are stored in a box far out of your reach because you can't bare to even touch them yet. Or you worry you'll damaged them or lose them and then that's yet another loss. Some nights I try to remember how it felt to be loved by them. And on other nights I do my best to forget. It's a constant war between needing any reminders of their presence and wanting to forget them completely. It's all about wanting to destroy that pain. But in forgetting you lose be happy memories. Yes, you might lose the painful ones but also the beautiful life-altering ones. The ones that used to make those dark days a little brighter.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done is look at the way they looked at me with so much hate when once they looked at me with so much love. A family which was a unit broke apart and I will always feel responsible. And me leaving wasn't because of hate; it was because of love. I loved them enough to let them go. I said my last goodbye to my mother not so long ago after years of barely any contact. As the words fell from my lips I died a little bit more inside. That night I lay there in tears because I was alone. She wasn't there. And a part of me knew that maybe she never will be again. I can remember nothing but the words that she said to a friend once before, as I left the house in tears. You can have her. They were the most honest things to ever leave her lips. And I wish that she had lied.
Losing someone you love, well, it's something I can't quite put into one sentence. Not one word can single it out. I could try to string the words together with a pretty bow but there's nothing pretty about the silent tears that fall down your cheeks. You can't romanticise the numbness as it seizes your whole body. The gasps sound so very desperate as you try to get up from the floor and you can't seem to find your footing anymore. You may have walked miles and climbed mountains but now moving a millimetre feels too much. So you wrap your arms around yourself as if to pretend you've got someone there. But as you open your eyes you notice there is no one to be found.
I don't think I'll ever get over losing the people I love. But sometimes you realise you can't force someone to love you in the same way or the exact amount that you love them. You might never even hear the word 'love' roll off their tongue even when you say it every day. And somehow you've got to be okay with that eventually.
Friday, 18 August 2017
Never Grow Up.
My mind seems to gravitate a lot towards my childhood; not necessarily the abuse side of things but the positive exciting memories too. You'd think that those would be easier to tolerate but in fact they are much harder to sit with. I spend hours sat reliving moments from my past and it's so vivid I can smell, touch, hear, and see those moments in time. I wish to be that little girl with blonde ringlets and freckles across her nose. The girl who hadn't yet experienced heartbreak or torture. She didn't know about violence or sexual assault. She was innocent. I wish I'd never grown up but I know that's not possible because this only happens in Disney movies.
You see that girl in those pictures? She was happy and full of life. She was incredibly shy but had a mischievous nature about her. She loved playing make believe and creating worlds for her Barbie dolls. She always got in a strop when her sisters didn't want to continue playing and left her to tidy up. Her favourite colour was pink and she loved wearing dresses. Her laugh was infectious and she was incredibly intelligent. Curious. Maybe a little too much at times. And oh she was competitive. It would get to the point that if she was losing a game she'd get up and leave because she wouldn't want to admit defeat.
A lot people from the town I grew up in remember that girl. They remember she was one of the twins. They might not have been able to tell her apart from her sister but everyone knew of these two identical blonde girls. Shy little children who held hands all the time. And I like to think that they still see me as the same person; that trauma didn't alter their perception too much. Because as the abuse started this little girl started to change. The clouds rolled in and her smile faltered. She didn't laugh as loudly and she didn't care for games or stories ending with a happily ever after. Her personality became numbed. She grew up too quickly in the space of weeks. Childhood ended the minute he started hurting her. She was barely 10 years old.
As a child a lot of us wish to grow up to be able to do all the exciting things adults get to do. We long to be seventeen to learn to drive or eighteen to enjoy our first legal drink. To make our own choices and revel at how much freedom we would have. It's something most children long for because school feels like it takes too long. That the years go so very slowly and you desperately want to be out in the real world doing amazing things. Now I know many of my friends, like me, regret that dream because when you're a child you don't understand the responsibilities of being an adult. The monotonous tasks. The need to budget money and clean and look after everyone else. The scary element of being independent. And then you begin to wish you had not wished for the years of childhood to pass so very quickly. You long to go back. And I share this. But then for me I missed half of my childhood anyway and so I could have only wished for more of the before rather than the after. Because he chose to cut mine short. To make me a woman when I was just a little girl.
I see many pictures of myself as I grew older and matured. I see the light in my eyes dim over time and my energy plummet. I see the hidden signs. The realisation that the amount of pictures I allowed myself to be in decreased. In fact there are very few pictures of me between the age of 10 and 19. I didn't want anyone to see me because it was hard enough seeing my reflection most days. And maybe that's why I didn't put effort into my appearance. I wanted to disappear. I decided to try to remain childlike and so Anorexia reared it's head. Maybe, just maybe, if I lost weight and became smaller I'd become the innocent little girl I once was. A naive thought but one I held onto because how else do you return to your younger self?
At least if I did I wouldn't be covered in scars; some of my own doing and some of his. My body wouldn't be barely surviving with a poor liver function and reduced bone density. I wouldn't have thick scars along my wrists reminding me of failed attempts at taking my life. My mind wouldn't be at war with itself. I wouldn't hide underneath my sink every single night after vivid flashbacks. Nightmares would involve monsters not real life people. I wouldn't have severe trust and abandonment issues. I could be married with a career and children by now. And I wouldn't be sat here writing this in my hospital bedroom feeling so isolated. Feeling like a failure in comparison to my friends. My life wouldn't be on hold.
These days I lose far too much time staring blankly at the walls in my room. Sometimes my head is empty but usually it's replaying my life on a loop. I just sit motionless. Not even crying. Just willing time to reverse itself. To not have to be brave and strong. To be like people my own age. Living. To feel loved and safe. Because before I was 10 years old all this was within my reach: this is the hardest part to comprehend. I could have achieved so very much by now but here I am. These are my dealt cards and I suppose I do have a choice. Live or die. Remain defeated or stand up every single time and decide that I can and will get the future that little girl pictured. My life might be very different to those around me and it might take me years to catch up but giving up feels like I'm letting that little girl down. Destroying her dreams and adding to her nightmares. That's not very fair to her.
As hard as life can be for me day to day, I do keep choosing to take hesitant steps forward. They are shaky and I almost fall down each time but it's not about that. It's not about how many times I fall it's about how many times I make choices to get back up again. Whatever the cost and how ever long it takes. I owe it to that little girl because she lost everything and now she deserves everything back. It might not be the way she wanted it but life isn't linear and it isn't perfect.
I might wish I'd never grown up and that's okay. Innocence is something you can't get back after exposure to trauma. It changes you. But you can start to create a life you want. It doesn't matter how old you are because I believe it's never too late to rebuild your life. Well, unless you decide it is. Suicide is always an option but if you give up now then how will you ever find out if it was worth it to experience so much pain? You'll never know the wonderful memories you can string together once childhood has truly ended.
And this is why growing up might have it's advantages after all.
You see that girl in those pictures? She was happy and full of life. She was incredibly shy but had a mischievous nature about her. She loved playing make believe and creating worlds for her Barbie dolls. She always got in a strop when her sisters didn't want to continue playing and left her to tidy up. Her favourite colour was pink and she loved wearing dresses. Her laugh was infectious and she was incredibly intelligent. Curious. Maybe a little too much at times. And oh she was competitive. It would get to the point that if she was losing a game she'd get up and leave because she wouldn't want to admit defeat.
As a child a lot of us wish to grow up to be able to do all the exciting things adults get to do. We long to be seventeen to learn to drive or eighteen to enjoy our first legal drink. To make our own choices and revel at how much freedom we would have. It's something most children long for because school feels like it takes too long. That the years go so very slowly and you desperately want to be out in the real world doing amazing things. Now I know many of my friends, like me, regret that dream because when you're a child you don't understand the responsibilities of being an adult. The monotonous tasks. The need to budget money and clean and look after everyone else. The scary element of being independent. And then you begin to wish you had not wished for the years of childhood to pass so very quickly. You long to go back. And I share this. But then for me I missed half of my childhood anyway and so I could have only wished for more of the before rather than the after. Because he chose to cut mine short. To make me a woman when I was just a little girl.
At least if I did I wouldn't be covered in scars; some of my own doing and some of his. My body wouldn't be barely surviving with a poor liver function and reduced bone density. I wouldn't have thick scars along my wrists reminding me of failed attempts at taking my life. My mind wouldn't be at war with itself. I wouldn't hide underneath my sink every single night after vivid flashbacks. Nightmares would involve monsters not real life people. I wouldn't have severe trust and abandonment issues. I could be married with a career and children by now. And I wouldn't be sat here writing this in my hospital bedroom feeling so isolated. Feeling like a failure in comparison to my friends. My life wouldn't be on hold.
These days I lose far too much time staring blankly at the walls in my room. Sometimes my head is empty but usually it's replaying my life on a loop. I just sit motionless. Not even crying. Just willing time to reverse itself. To not have to be brave and strong. To be like people my own age. Living. To feel loved and safe. Because before I was 10 years old all this was within my reach: this is the hardest part to comprehend. I could have achieved so very much by now but here I am. These are my dealt cards and I suppose I do have a choice. Live or die. Remain defeated or stand up every single time and decide that I can and will get the future that little girl pictured. My life might be very different to those around me and it might take me years to catch up but giving up feels like I'm letting that little girl down. Destroying her dreams and adding to her nightmares. That's not very fair to her.
As hard as life can be for me day to day, I do keep choosing to take hesitant steps forward. They are shaky and I almost fall down each time but it's not about that. It's not about how many times I fall it's about how many times I make choices to get back up again. Whatever the cost and how ever long it takes. I owe it to that little girl because she lost everything and now she deserves everything back. It might not be the way she wanted it but life isn't linear and it isn't perfect.
I might wish I'd never grown up and that's okay. Innocence is something you can't get back after exposure to trauma. It changes you. But you can start to create a life you want. It doesn't matter how old you are because I believe it's never too late to rebuild your life. Well, unless you decide it is. Suicide is always an option but if you give up now then how will you ever find out if it was worth it to experience so much pain? You'll never know the wonderful memories you can string together once childhood has truly ended.
And this is why growing up might have it's advantages after all.
Sunday, 6 August 2017
First steps up that Mountain.
Recovering from Abuse is like standing at the very bottom of a mountain and not getting even a glimpse at how far the top is. You start to doubt it's even there and if it's not, will you ever make it to the other side? Everyone around you points at it like it's incredibly visible. They tell you to try this or that or if you just choose to act this way or reported this then you'd start moving. But you yell at them and say it's not that simple. Your feet feel stuck in cement and you can't even wiggle your toes without intense agony. Because the abuse is all over you; smothering you. Will you even have enough oxygen to last you? It's a hefty weight to carry up a mountain.
I've told many people over the last few months how desperately I want to give up. That he can win. I'm done. Finished. Let me die. But all of them have said to keep going. I'm brave. A fighter. A survivor. And they remind me of the qualities I don't believe I have and they tell me of the future that feels hard to obtain. So they end up carrying a bit of the weight for a while. I suppose this is where being an inpatient softens the blow of trauma now and again. Of course no one can carry it all for me but they can hold my hand through the endless tears. Remind me over and over that I am safe. That no one is going to hurt me here. I'm no longer at home. He's not here. They hug me which feels like a luxury because I missed out on them throughout my childhood. Sure, they can't take the trauma away but they can help me muddle my way through it.
Hospital life can be challenging at times. You are surrounded by people who are very unwell and behaving in ways which can be scary or triggering. It's not a natural environment; it's clinical and regimented. Days are structured by meals and medication. You find your days going by slowly but your months passing too quick. It's isolating from the people on the outside of those locked doors. Having no leave for your safety from the man who has hurt you for 15 years is tough. You feel punished because if he wasn't out there, you'd be out there. It's like the roles are reversed. And this is hard to swallow late at night when you can't sleep. How can an abuser walk free and a victim be locked away? I'm now looking at a further 2 years in hospital. By the time I leave I'll be 27 years old. 17 years after the abuse started.
I could yell and scream that this isn't my fault. That the flashbacks and nightmares shouldn't mean I have to stay inside. That, yes, I dissociate and have multiple personalities, but I don't go around hurting other people other than myself. I didn't deserve this pain. Why me? Why ME? But then I take a breath. I collect my thoughts. I pause at the end of the mountain and I realise that the only way out is to start climbing. To try not to look down but to look up. That maybe I didn't deserve this and this isn't my fault but this is what he's left me with. He chose to prey on a defenceless little girl and that girl had to live with the consequences. But I'm not that little anymore and I have strength I didn't have before. I have courage and a voice and stubbornness. I don't back down from a fight so I won't back down from this.
You know, I might lose my footing and I might fall down but that doesn't mean I'm failing. It means that I'm trying but the climb is tough. The trick is to get back on the path and to not let the knocks and falls stop me from achieving the things everyone reminds me are possible. That having my own family is within my reach. Helping others overcome trauma is achievable. Having my own kind of justice can happen. Living a fulfilling life which doesn't revolve around trauma is likely but only if I try. They remind me that there is a top to this mountain and if there is a top then there is another side. It's a known fact that it's easier walking down a mountain than up one. This is the hardest part of my journey.
And those small steps are something really powerful.
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