Struggling

I woke up this morning, and sluggishly rolled out of bed. Showered, took my hand full of medication, and downed some water. I'm dressed and ready to start my day, and that's a big deal because I don't want to be around people right now. I don't even want to exist at the moment.

Outside everything is gray, clouds cover what would be a clear blue sky. The world is damp and muted, it fits my mood perfectly and makes it even harder to walk out that door this morning. The other day I came within inches of harming myself, it would have destroyed my year long streak of being kind to myself. I didn't, if anyone is worried. Instead I powered through the awful emotional trauma that had crawled it's way back to the forefront of my mind. I suffered the pain I should have felt when I was ten, and relived, in part, one of the most awful years of my life.

That's the thing about being a kid and living in awful situations. You don't have the skills to handle them at that age, the only thing you have to fall back on is instinct. Raw animal reaction, and that reaction is to survive by whatever means possible. Subconsciously you would do anything to take away the unbearable trauma, pain, abuse. . . Even if it means burying those emotions—reactions—deep within yourself, leaving them to feaster into unhealthy habits.

It happened to me. I live with these, 'cooping' skills that are destructive in nature. At thirty-three I'm learning how to live all over again, and right when I think I have a handle on things—when I believe there are no more awful things to recall—I get slammed by memories. My mind thinks, “Hey, you're feeling better. Here take this!”

The bastard.

I'm not ready to talk about what I remembered, but when I am—when I'm ready—to fully face that year of my life that I only recall in pieces. Then. . . then I'll post it here. Until such time know that this is what my depression looks like. . . This is how I became the strong person everyone tells me I am.

I suffer. . . I live beyond horrors most would surrender to, and honestly—in truth—I don't know how I do it.

I would like to tell you that I have some greater cause or reason for hanging on. Something like, I don't want my abusers to win, or I want revenge. But it's none of those. For some reason—some mysterious reason—I won't let the darkness drag me under. Maybe I'm just that stubborn. I wouldn't put it past myself, but know that when you grow up with abuse, trauma, awful events. You don't live them once and then they pass by never to be heard from again.

They return, over and over again. . . In your happiest most productive moments—when you head believes you can survive the flood—they return, and challenge your strength and resolve once again.

Today I'm battling, and that will be my life forever. A battle between past and present, of now and then. My abusers will always be with me, but I'm determined to make them nothing more than harmless phantoms.

#Abuse #Fighter #Warrior #Struggling #Memories

~Jax~