Writing.....

What's it like to be a survivor?


In as few words as possible, here is exactly what it's like.


It's waking up every morning and not knowing if you'll have a flashback; if it will be a bad one.


It's feeling the need to wrap yourself in blankets for comfort long after everyone else gets up in the morning and long before everyone else goes to bed at night.


It's doubting your reliability, your reality, your resilience.


It's constantly wondering if you're crazy. If you're a liar. If the physical and emotional pain you experience on a daily basis (with varying intensity) is all just in your head.


It's not wanting to be touched. Even affectionately or gently. And then suddenly wanting to be held by someone safe for as long as possible.


It's apologizing constantly for every little thing you do because your mind still thinks everything is an attack, so it defends itself against everything all the time.


It's a silent but deadly form of destructive poison that eats you from the inside out, making everything hazy and confusing, and every decision somehow the wrong one, no matter what you do.



But most of all it's isolation.



It's screaming for love that doesn't hurt. Physically or otherwise.


It's crying because you want to feel (and be) strong and resilient and brave and you can't.


It's deep frustration with yourself because you want to be able to pour into others but it's so hard.


It's wanting to cry and not being able to.


It's getting angry at subtle hints, stiffening up and pulling into yourself.


It's spending hours alone with your thoughts and not getting any relief.


It's wrestling with God's goodness, God's presence, God's advocacy, God's justice.


It's running out of words to describe the agony and just dropping your head on the nearest surface in exhaustion because you don't know what else to do.


That is what it's like to be a survivor. That's what it's like to be me.



"You don't know what it feels like until it's happened to you."
~Lady Gaga