I am sitting here with caustic soda to my right, just imagining how much easier things would be if I were to just swallow it.
I'm not nice to be around. I know that. I am seeping poison from the wounds that are leaking over from my mind. I am toxic.
Or I just feel that way.
When someone hurts you in the worst way possible. You know the way I'm talking of.
The one where you're crying and feeling like your precious flower has been destroyed. It kills a part of you. It fucking kills you. Not only are you left with emotional scars, that take years to be beaten. But you're left with physiological damage too. It's disheartening. Do you know how many people don't understand 'no'? How many people accuse you of being a freak, or weird, because your body isn't reacting the way it should? A lot of people don't consider the fact that I need to feel safe. My body needs to feel that safety.
I am inadvertently pushing people away. Because it feels like people always leave. And maybe it won't hurt or disappoint me so much if I push them away first. I know that's bullshit though. But I can't stop myself. Someone sabotaged my very essence by removing my consent, by removing my control. I guess pushing people away is how I gain some form of control.
I know I have spent many years being courageous and strong. By myself. But this time it's different. This time, the emotions, the darkness is caused by physiological means. Apparently it will take time to leave my system, but how much time? How much time will I have to hope and pray for my light to just return?
I used to be the girl that embraced my sexuality, who wrote prose with such sexual passion. Who wasn't ashamed to promote my vivaciousness. But it's been knocked out of me. If I told my friends, that 'hey, look, he followed me out from work one day. Got in my head. Please help me block him out', would any of them understand or care? My PTSD is out of my control right now. I am no longer just triggered by men. But by women. By friends being flirtatious with me. Even friends I work with joking around and flirting with me like they used to is triggering for me. And I try to not let it happen. I try so hard not to be triggered. I'm constantly apologising for it. Sometimes it affects me, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I recoil, sometimes I try to explain it. But I don't think I do a very good job. But imagine someone coming home from war, who had his leg blown off jumping at the slightest banging sound. But then other times they're fine. It's like that. That's how PTSD works. I didn't need therapy to tell me that. I needed people in a sexual survivor group to explain to me. My PTSD is only so bad because of the physiological damage that resulted in the psychological effect.
People ask me how things make sense in my brain. Well, they don't. How can they right now? I'm so plagued with not even knowing my own mind. It's frustrating for me, but I can't just click my fingers and be okay again. I need time. I need patience. I need support and I need to be willing to let people in.
This post might be triggering for some. But I feel not enough people highlight what being a survivor actually entails. I know that I AM strong - I get out of bed, I go to work. I function, but at home without that routine I am falling to pieces. Loathing every part that someone else has touched. I just don't always feel that I am strong, despite having the logic to know I must be.
What can people do for me? I've had people ask me.
- Hug me
- Don't criticise me for crying
- Understand why I have boundaries that seemingly come from nowhere
- Understand that I'm not meaning to hurt others, only myself
- Please, don't let me hurt myself. Please don't.
- Tell me a thousand times that I have value, even if I argue against it. Tell me until I start to believe it. Until I start to feel it.
- Tell me what actually makes me special, what makes me beautiful.
- Be the overbearing voice that outshines the one he left on me.
If I'm ranting to you. Opening up, believe it or not, it means I'm fighting. I'm fighting the darkness, trying to survive.
I'm turning to you because I trust you, because I feel safe with you.
So here I am, with a bottle of caustic soda next to me. It would be so much easier to end it all with it. But the fragile girl I could not help, deserves more than that. I will rise.
This is the reality of endless abuse. I am strong, but I need support. I need someone to just hug me. I need someone to just say that they care. This needed to be written about. This is reality. This isn't some fictious programme that portrays assault with either the victim becoming a sexual deviant or a suicide victim. This is my life. And I am telling you, I am trying to survive. And if it ever was that I lose this fight, I didn't kill myself. He did.
I just wanted to write this out. To be raw. To be real. To distract from the darkness in my head.
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