Two steps forward; one step back.
Celebrate the little victories. Like walking away from a situation when you feel unsafe instead of forcing yourself to stay there. Being able to begin to tolerate sleeping on your back instead of curled up in fetal position every night. Letting yourself smile or laugh. Opening yourself up to your friends instead of pulling back or pushing away.
And then just when you think you're doing so well, something hits you out of the blue and stuns you. Things you thought you had escaped or defeated or at the very least, shoved away and locked in a closet for an indefinite period of time. But no, they never went away, really, and they're still there. They still hurt you. They still seek you. And they always manage to find you and torture you no matter how securely you thought you'd locked them away.
Nightmares that make you wake up crying, scared, sad, angry, and vulnerable. Feeling your blood boil when someone stands over you and tells you to stop being stressed because you don't need to be. The nausea and racing heart that saturates your being when you're laying in a recliner and your former abuser comes up behind you unknowingly and stands just out of your sight, not going away, making you bolt up and gasp for air.
At this point you're exhausted. You don't feel safe even though you try. You're doing everything in your power but you're afraid and you're sore and you're sorry for things you don't even completely understand, things that were and are out of your control. You carry the pain of your past in your physicality and you can't rid yourself of it; you feel the agony of lost innocence over and over again.
Yes, this is me, not some hypothetical "you." I'm far from the mask of smile and sparkle that so many see when they look at me. Underneath I'm shattered glass, splintered wood, rusty metal, bleeding wounds, charred burns. When I look at myself in the mirror after I take off my disguise I wonder how I'm still alive. When someone stands beside me and looks in the same mirror at mask-free me I wonder why they don't grimace and run away.
Because when I take off the mask at night I see a terrified little girl, too scared and too hurt to cry, cowering in the corner with a thin blanket around her shoulders for comfort, her fists clenched and her body shaking in utter terror. She is alone, but the sense of evil and fear and violation that surrounds her is palpable; it manifests into filth and coats her in its grime.
That little girl never leaves me. I wish someone would hold her. That she might feel safe. Loved.
I run, now, because she could not. I fight back, now, because she could not. I scream, I cry, I hide, I defend now, because she could not. But I still carry that little girl's horrible wounds inside me.
Someday I want someone to scoop up that little girl and make it better forever.
Why do you say I am brave?
Celebrate the little victories. Like walking away from a situation when you feel unsafe instead of forcing yourself to stay there. Being able to begin to tolerate sleeping on your back instead of curled up in fetal position every night. Letting yourself smile or laugh. Opening yourself up to your friends instead of pulling back or pushing away.
And then just when you think you're doing so well, something hits you out of the blue and stuns you. Things you thought you had escaped or defeated or at the very least, shoved away and locked in a closet for an indefinite period of time. But no, they never went away, really, and they're still there. They still hurt you. They still seek you. And they always manage to find you and torture you no matter how securely you thought you'd locked them away.
Nightmares that make you wake up crying, scared, sad, angry, and vulnerable. Feeling your blood boil when someone stands over you and tells you to stop being stressed because you don't need to be. The nausea and racing heart that saturates your being when you're laying in a recliner and your former abuser comes up behind you unknowingly and stands just out of your sight, not going away, making you bolt up and gasp for air.
At this point you're exhausted. You don't feel safe even though you try. You're doing everything in your power but you're afraid and you're sore and you're sorry for things you don't even completely understand, things that were and are out of your control. You carry the pain of your past in your physicality and you can't rid yourself of it; you feel the agony of lost innocence over and over again.
Yes, this is me, not some hypothetical "you." I'm far from the mask of smile and sparkle that so many see when they look at me. Underneath I'm shattered glass, splintered wood, rusty metal, bleeding wounds, charred burns. When I look at myself in the mirror after I take off my disguise I wonder how I'm still alive. When someone stands beside me and looks in the same mirror at mask-free me I wonder why they don't grimace and run away.
Because when I take off the mask at night I see a terrified little girl, too scared and too hurt to cry, cowering in the corner with a thin blanket around her shoulders for comfort, her fists clenched and her body shaking in utter terror. She is alone, but the sense of evil and fear and violation that surrounds her is palpable; it manifests into filth and coats her in its grime.
That little girl never leaves me. I wish someone would hold her. That she might feel safe. Loved.
I run, now, because she could not. I fight back, now, because she could not. I scream, I cry, I hide, I defend now, because she could not. But I still carry that little girl's horrible wounds inside me.
Someday I want someone to scoop up that little girl and make it better forever.
Why do you say I am brave?
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