This is what trauma looks like.
It's waking up from a nightmare, unable to think past the ghosts in your mind.
It's trying to get ahold of someone, anyone, but being unable to speak past the hyperventilating and sobbing.
It's trying to mimic EMDR therapy but you're still freaking out so you end up bruising your thighs, beating them like a drum because you just want to hear something other than your own heart pounding.
It's hiding in a corner instead of confronting your fears because this corner is the only darkness you're not terrified of.
It's doing whatever you can to not think about it so you clean or your drink or sleep or anything that can distract you, sometimes even for years.
Trauma changes you.
A shower isn't just a shower anymore.
It's an attempt to wash away what's happened.
A bed isn't just a bed, but is a horrific memory or the only place you feel safe.
A city isn't just a destination, but a warzone filled with the bits and pieces of your former self, your 'before it happened' self.
Trauma isn't just bullets or death.
It's an awful experience that haunts you when you least expect it.
It keeps you trapped, even when you feel free.
Anything can and will set it off.
It's not a joke and it's not a 'sensitive boundary'.
It's a line that you don't cross.
You don't 'just get over it' or 'move on and leave it in the past'.
You cope, because that is literally your only option.
And you fight, because that's all you know how to do anymore after living through your own personal hell.
My trauma made me who I am, and yet despite the fact that a sentence like this always ends with 'and I'm so grateful', I'm angry.
I don't know who I would be without going through what I went through, but I'm exhausted being this scared all the time.
I'm tired of avoided places, avoiding activities, avoiding saying how I feel.
I'm just tired.
Of being strong, of having my shit together, plastering on a smile the way I plastered the holes you left in my kitchen.
And I know I'm feeling sorry for myself, but maybe I deserve a chance to break down.
Shit, it's not like I get to cry very often surrounded by the faces that want to see me healed.
They, you, don't want to see this.
You don't want to see the tossing and turning, the bruise-like circles slowly forming as each night goes by with eyes wide open.
You don't want to look too closely at the thin pale lines marring my skin.
You don't want to know the stories behind the pain pills I'm too scared to take because all I feel is the pain from overdosing trying to trade depression for death.
So we don't ask, don't tell.
We play this game of pretending trauma exists only in the mind of the past, not the present.
But right when you think you're past it, you're healed, that you've finally found that last piece to complete the mosaic of who you are, the sandbox bully rips it down and says, I'm back.
It's waking up from a nightmare, unable to think past the ghosts in your mind.
It's trying to get ahold of someone, anyone, but being unable to speak past the hyperventilating and sobbing.
It's trying to mimic EMDR therapy but you're still freaking out so you end up bruising your thighs, beating them like a drum because you just want to hear something other than your own heart pounding.
It's hiding in a corner instead of confronting your fears because this corner is the only darkness you're not terrified of.
It's doing whatever you can to not think about it so you clean or your drink or sleep or anything that can distract you, sometimes even for years.
Trauma changes you.
A shower isn't just a shower anymore.
It's an attempt to wash away what's happened.
A bed isn't just a bed, but is a horrific memory or the only place you feel safe.
A city isn't just a destination, but a warzone filled with the bits and pieces of your former self, your 'before it happened' self.
Trauma isn't just bullets or death.
It's an awful experience that haunts you when you least expect it.
It keeps you trapped, even when you feel free.
Anything can and will set it off.
It's not a joke and it's not a 'sensitive boundary'.
It's a line that you don't cross.
You don't 'just get over it' or 'move on and leave it in the past'.
You cope, because that is literally your only option.
And you fight, because that's all you know how to do anymore after living through your own personal hell.
My trauma made me who I am, and yet despite the fact that a sentence like this always ends with 'and I'm so grateful', I'm angry.
I don't know who I would be without going through what I went through, but I'm exhausted being this scared all the time.
I'm tired of avoided places, avoiding activities, avoiding saying how I feel.
I'm just tired.
Of being strong, of having my shit together, plastering on a smile the way I plastered the holes you left in my kitchen.
And I know I'm feeling sorry for myself, but maybe I deserve a chance to break down.
Shit, it's not like I get to cry very often surrounded by the faces that want to see me healed.
They, you, don't want to see this.
You don't want to see the tossing and turning, the bruise-like circles slowly forming as each night goes by with eyes wide open.
You don't want to look too closely at the thin pale lines marring my skin.
You don't want to know the stories behind the pain pills I'm too scared to take because all I feel is the pain from overdosing trying to trade depression for death.
So we don't ask, don't tell.
We play this game of pretending trauma exists only in the mind of the past, not the present.
But right when you think you're past it, you're healed, that you've finally found that last piece to complete the mosaic of who you are, the sandbox bully rips it down and says, I'm back.
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