PTSD the Monster

 PTSD.....the monster not in your closet or under the bed

PTSD......it's the monster that dwells in your head

I can't remember what it's like to not have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I've had it for so long, I don't remember what a life without trauma is like.  I was diagnosed with it a decade ago, but I've definitely had it longer than that.  With a history of childhood bullying, sexual abuse, and then some, it takes a toll on a person.  When that continues as an adult, with people gaslighting you, abusing you, neglecting you, manipulating you, abandoning you, it effects you in ways you can't imagine.

I thought I was finally starting to heal....slowly healing.....all the heavy baggage I had been carrying alone for so many years was finally starting to unload.....then....it happens.....the rug is pulled beneath me......I'm swallowed by the darkness and devoured by loneliness, depression, and trauma.  Like you're on a plane flying high in the sky only to have that plane explode in midair and you're free falling in the sky just waiting to crash into the ground flat like a pancake....then when you crash every bone has been pulverized....yet your heart is still beating.....you haven't physically died somehow....but everything inside you has died.....everything in you has been destroyed...... You can't get up on your own because your bones are dust.  Yet even though you're back on the ground, you still hear the explosion, you still feel yourself free falling in the sky.  Even when you're taken to the hospital and fixed up, you can still see the explosion like its happening.  You can't escape it.  You relive it awake and in your sleep.  There's no escape......and no one can help you because they weren't there with you when it happened.  People may say you're overreacting or it's even your fault when it's not.  It's an internal fight you have to fight alone.  So how do you heal?  You don't.  Instead, you learn to cope and you learn to survive.  Your life will never be the same as before the plane explosion.  You will never be that person again.  That person died.  A new person was born from the ashes.  As hard as it is though, you keep going, you keep living.  It's okay to have your weak moments.  It's okay to cry or freak out.  What isn't okay is to end your life or someone else's.  No, you must live!  Live!  Show those who destroyed you or don't understand that you're better than them and keep moving forward!  Yet at the same time, do your best to not harden your heart in it.  I know it's tempting to.....how I've wanted to harden my heart and have come close to it, yet even now I still can't.  That's the best revenge.  To not let them win!  Not let them harden your heart!  Not let them kill your very soul, even if they killed your spirit!  No matter what, don't let them win, keep going!  You can do this!  You will never be who you once were, no, you will be stronger, like the phoenix that died in the ashes, rise above it!