
I’m exhausted from crying. It was another tough day today. I knew it would happen, and today was the day; I had to talk about the Travelodge call and trial. With reluctance crushing my heart with every beat, I recounted the horror of those life changing days. The days I unquestionably saw evil in a man’s eyes, and felt spirits in the room where those poor women were so brutally murdered. My walls were no match for the emotions that flooded my soul. Today I had to remember hell.
I bawled…like I knew I would. And when I was right in the middle of recalling the horror, my mind dissociated again. Thankfully, this time I could name the indescribable sensation; I didn’t have to feel so alien while my mind pulled me away from the reality of the room, and when the people around me felt like characters in a play I was watching from the front row. I also knew how to ground myself, but that skill is going to take some practice. I’m not use to controlling the dissociation while I’m in it, as loss of control is the cause of it in the first place. Fortunately, I had more support from my peers than I could have ever imagined. While reliving two of the worst days of my life, I gratefully felt blanketed in safety and trust.
My peers could connect with many of my immense feelings. The outrage that spilled out of me in the form of words was an emotion everyone could feel. I explained how infuriated I was that evil always seems to inevitably triumph over happiness. To me it’s only a matter of time that any contentment in my life gets shadowed by deep sadness. Remember the saying my sister and I had when we were little? “Believe it when you see it and enjoy it while it lasts”, is truly my adage in life. How depressing is that?
What seems so good at one moment in my life seems to leave so quickly…leaving me guarded by walls and wary of any future happiness. Sometimes I think that people who say, “there’s a lesson in all of this pain”, deserve a punch in the neck! I don’t like painful lessons! They SUCK and happen all the time. I also don’t like when people say, “it’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all”. Theses dorks deserve a kick in the nuts! My heart is still broken and it hurts with every passing moment. So to me love wasn’t better at all.
The stress of the day got my addict and PTSD brain going a mile a minute; which I’ve been told is quite normal. I craved all night and couldn’t come out of my room. My depression landed on me like a heavy wet blanket that I couldn’t crawl out from. It was the first time at HU that my depression was that bad. While lost in self-pity I doubted my true intentions for being here. Was I here for me? Or everyone else? My distorted thinking is cunning and plays tricks on me so slyly. The only thing I knew clearly was that I needed to stay and trust the staff.
I’m proud of myself for asking for help when the darkness hit me; I never would before. Since I’ve been here, I’ve learned even more how important it is to talk when I’m lost. (AB, once again you were right needed to feel like this in order to heal. Another painful lesson…see what I’m saying? It’s horrible! Apparently I had to come to see that I was allowed to crumble to pieces, and when I did, the whole world wouldn’t fall apart without me. What do you mean the world wouldn’t fall apart? I’ve thought that way for so long! I have been so use to being the strong person for so many years because shit had to get done, or lives wouldn’t survive…or so I thought. There was never any time for falling apart. I had a daughter, a little brother and a mom to take care of. Feelings would just mess everything up. In fact, having a glimmer of sadness would make me feel selfish and weak.
Now after taking a closer look at every aspect of myself, I’ve realized that the only thing that is weak now are the walls I had built so strongly to save me from my feelings. When I got here I thought, ‘good luck tearing them down’. But with a lot of tears, today and few bricks crumbled. I tried to catch them, but they were already falling. They were old and decayed and of no use to me anymore. So I let them fall, then noticed the smallest glimpse of light shining through where they had once been. The trick now is to try not to rebuild them.
I could really use a sunny day!
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