2012

I’m only writing this because it feels so inspired by incessant insomnia these days. I didn’t sleep last night at all. I honestly don’t know how long I’ve been awake, all I know is that it’s been longer than a day. And it reminds me of some time ago.

In 2012, I found myself couch surfing on a friends couch after moving out of my parents house. I tried to make things work at my parents house, but I wasn’t really able to. After my dad had found out what happened to me, he was extremely upset, in my face and yelling. I know that he had done it because he was sad but it was already such a hard time for me that I just couldn’t take it. So, I moved out. And that’s when the insomnia I guess got really bad.

I was sleeping on their couch, well I was supposed to be, but not much sleeping happened. I’d say goodnight to them, and then I’d find myself scrolling on Tumblr for hours, til the sun came up. I’d see poems that I could relate to, or I’d write about what happened over and over because I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I felt guilty for moving out of my parents house. I had my fish Jimmy with me, and a few bags of clothes. That was it. This was a really hard time for me. I missed my parents. I felt like my world was falling apart. I was having nightmares and feeling so deeply depressed some days I couldn’t move. And I wasn’t sleeping.

Even as I’m writing this, I’m reminded of the immense grief I felt at the time and how lonely everything felt. No one really knew what to do with me. I didn’t know what to do with me. I have been feeling that way again recently. I’ve been afraid that I’d go back to how I was before. Back to this version of me, the 2012 version of me, if I let myself feel everything that hurt so much. How can I even be sure I’m not that person anymore?

Last week my psychiatrist was concerned about how I was doing. It was a 3 month follow up, and I explained to her that I hadn’t been sleeping, and it was getting to me. I told her I had a fleeting thought here or there, but nothing really out of the ordinary. That concerned her to the point of asking me if I was safe. Of course I said was, because in all honesty, I really am. I don’t think I’m ever going to return to the point of wanting to kill myself, even though I really want to some days. But I just know the grief that death leaves behind and I can’t leave people I love in that, carrying that. But I don’t feel right. I don’t feel like me. I sh for the first time in maybe a year or 2 this week. It hurts, but it also feels good, feeling like I can release some momentary heartache without inflicting heartache on the ones I love.

I’m not really sure how to get through this life. I always joke with my friends saying that I don’t plan on living more than 10 more years. That I don’t want to do that. It’s kind of a joke but it’s also serious. Because how can someone be my age and be so tired already? How can someone have experienced this much life and still have some will power to move forward. I’m not a victim. I’m not a survivor. I’m just really fucking tired. Too tired to be mad at the people who hurt me, too tired to envision a life with these memories. Everyone says you can move on from the pain. I don’t know if you can, at least, I don’t know if I can. I need to not remember. I need to completely forget, have my memories wiped. My brain healed. I need a fresh start. Somehow.

A Name For It

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. With covid, it feels like the world is moving in slow motion, while simultaneously moving on fast forward. I feel like I always write about the same things when I do write, and I don’t want to be repetitive, but other than my psychiatrist and therapist, I don’t really know how to or maybe even want to open up.

I’ve been going to therapy for just over a month now, and it’s been helpful. I almost said while ‘but’ in the last sentence, however that’s not the case. I really like my therapist a lot. At first when we started, I kinda gave a verbal power point of some of my trauma. After I had gotten it all out, she told me that it was ok, and that it would take time and that I need to give myself time. That I didn’t have divulge all of that in one breath and it wouldn’t be as simple as saying it all at once. At first I felt embarrassed, because I felt like I really needed to get it all out. My last therapist I loved, but because of covid, her moving and honestly just my schedule, I wasn’t able to see her often, and eventually she stopped checking in. I didn’t realize how unsteady that made me feel until I met this new therapist.

It’s been a month and I feel a lot more settled. Therapy is every Wednesday at 9:00. Something that I wouldn’t have personally chosen for myself but am finding to be a good match. I know I can talk a lot and it helps that she chats as much as she…therapizes? I know that’s not a word, but it works. As we’ve talked, I’ve uncovered a lot of insecurities I feel about myself and my family, the constant feeling of being unsafe that I didn’t really recognize. We also talked about my disassociation. This isn’t something I’ve really delved into with a physician or anything, but something I feel often.

About a month ago, my psychiatrist started me on Seroquel for sleep. It’s something I took when I was in the hospital, and though it’s been years, I recalled it being helpful. I started on 50mg, though I didn’t find it as helpful and was taking my diphenhydramine alongside it. Then last week she upped to 100 since I still wasn’t sleeping well. And it worked quickly. The first day after 3 or so hours of constant nightmares, I finally fell asleep and slept until 3:30 pm which I NEVER do. Then I noticed my emotions were more even keeled. I wasn’t feeling so deeply depressed or saddened like I have been feeling.

That’s when I, like a genius, decided to google search the medication and it’s uses. It’d been so long, and I wasn’t sure if it was specifically an anti depressant or what have you. It’s listed as an antipsychotic, for bipolar, mania and schizophrenia. Immediately this freaked me out. Although I know people with these diagnoses, I’d never been diagnosed with more than depression, anxiety, and cptsd. Of course the stigma and understanding of the illnesses isn’t well communicated, but with my constant state of disassociating, I felt scared reading this.

I brought this up to her and she immediately eased my fears. As I was explaining to her what I feel like when I disassociate, I felt myself disassociating . My head felt swimy and I could feel myself disconnecting in the conversation. It was hard to explain what was happening in my head because I guess the emotions I feel when I’m describing it is too heavy. She said that it’s a trauma response and that it makes sense as to why I do that. I just don’t like it.

I feel like there are 4 versions of me: The one people see at work, the one I am when I am trying to distract myself, the one when I let myself feel everything, and the one that wants to destroy myself. It’s confusing and it sounds crazy. I feel scared and I guess ashamed if that’s how my brain works. Not that anyone should feel ashamed or embarrassed about it. But like. How do you explain not feeling safe with yourself? I don’t know how. And how do I communicate that with people. I just want to shut down.

—–

reading back, I can tell I wrote this in two sittings, but it was honest. I don’t really understand why my brain does this. Every thing I read says that your brain does this to protect itself. But I don’t feel protected. I feel fragmented and confused.

Accepting

These past few weeks have been nuts. We’ve been getting the house ready to show for moving and for the last few weeks it’s just been kind of a tornado of getting things ready. From painting to staging to just mentally preparing for the task, I feel as if I might throw up. Not from the ac of doing these things, but because this whole year has been a tornado of uncertainty and honestly, just not having control.

In the process of getting ready to move, I’ve also had to figure out where I’d go. Staging means showing, and showing means no one is supposed to be in the house while people are walking around and seeing it. That part is expected. But, the major question has been where do I go? I’ve looked at airbnbs for the last 3 weeks or so, trying to prepare myself mentally. I’ve looked at hotels and stuff trying to figure out where to go. But most importantly, I’ve had people say I can stay with them.

That’s been the weird part. I don’t like when people offer me things. I don’t know. It’s a mixed bag when it comes to the emotions. I don’t know like feeling as if I need people. I don’t mind needing people, but I don’t want to need people. The people I live with have told me time and time again that I can stay with them at their parents house. I’ve said no maybe 30 million times. It’s not that I don’t like the parents, it’s just. I feel like a burden?

Eventually it got to the point where they hit up mutual friends and told me I would/could go there. Not out of force but because they know I won’t go. Which is funny and weird. So I have a place to go. the hardest part is that this place is only a 3 minute walk away from my parents house. My parents know that we are moving and they know that I will have to go somewhere for a few days, but they haven’t offered. Maybe it’s wrong of me, but I think part of me hoped they would. I know I would say yes to them before anyone else.

My brain immediately goes to the place of why would I stay with anyone else if my parents wouldn’t want me to stay with them? Like why would anyone want me in their space if my parents don’t want me in theirs? I know they don’t feel that way and probably want me to ask so that it doesn’t come off overbearing. But I feel like my entire life has been centered around having to figure things out for myself. I don’t want to be like that, but it’s moments like this that sort of feel like a reminder that I don’t have them necessarily in the ways that I’ve always needed them.

In all of my greatest struggles, I’ve had to carry myself, and sort of shield them from the brunt of things that don’t feel good. And I’ve never minded. I mean I did, but I didn’t know that I did. But now that I do, it hurts in a different kind of way. I guess that’s why this whole thing, moving and showing, has been so hard. Because in the back of my mind, I’m always wondering why would anyone want me? I don’t feel pity for myself, I don’t think my brain goes that way. It just goes to, you take care of you. No one else will do it. And even though that’s what I’m prone to doing, I don’t think I like doing that. Actually, I know I don’t like doing that.

But I am an adult now, and I have to be to myself what I never had, and I think that’s maybe why I get kinda suicidal. Because I don’t find the value in being something for myself that the people in my life that are there to be those things, yet don’t do those things.

I don’t think I have much redemptive to say except that there are people who do want me. And I just don’t know how to feel about that.

28

Tomorrow, September 2nd, is my 28th birthday.

To be honest I haven’t had a lot of positive feelings about this coming birthday. Part of it is because of what happened two days later, and part of it is that I never wanted to live this long. I feel like a broken record when I say that, but honestly, it’s true. I expected 21, maaayybe 22. But here I am.

So much of me wants to disappear. Mostly because I feel like a stranger in my own body most days. But I know it means a lot to my parents and to my friends that I rent my apartment from. It’s weird. I don’t have much to say about this, but I figure it’s worth documenting, with the hope that maybe in a few years, even months, I’ll feel differently. I’ll arrive to whoever I am and it will all finally make some sense.

Anyways I had a terrible dream last night and woke up crying again, so that’s cool.

And Back Again.

This year has been absolutely insane. I feel tired beyond comprehension. Between working as a cardiac surgical coordinator for Doctors who throw charts and tantrums, to dealing with covid, to friends and family dying, to Hamilton. it’s just been fucking insane and I’m really feeling it lately.

In the beginning of June, the pharmacy ran out of my cymbalta. This is the first medication in 10 years that I felt was helpful and was truly making a difference. I missed a week and a half, and in that time span, I spiraled so hard. Suicidal thoughts out of nowhere and nightmares every night. I’m finally back on it, but I feel terrible. I don’t know how to get out of this funk.

I feel like my whole life I’ve just been waiting to die. The fear, the anxiety, the broken trust, the lies. I don’t identify with being a victim. I know in many ways I am but to mentally do so would destroy me. I’m not a victim. I’ve just been through a lot of shit and honestly I just don’t want to go through anymore. I’m tired. Everything that brought me joy I just don’t enjoy like I used to. Writing has been harder. I don’t sing or play piano or guitar. I work. All day, and then, when I finally come up for air, when the work day is done, I immediately put on an audiobook or a podcast until I fall asleep. I just can’t deal with what’s going on in my head. Buying groceries, trying to decide to eat. Getting up to go to the bathroom. Doing simple things like drinking water. I don’t understand why my brain is like this. Why it feels like it’s constantly just a few steps away from killing me.

In 2017, I started writing in my old computer. and in that computer I have 70 some odd pages of thoughts and feelings and frustrations. I guess for me it was like a suicide note. Not one that I ever intended on using. But just, what I would say, what I wanted to say, What I’ve kept locked up. The things I’ve never said because I don’t want to hurt people. But what hurts me is not being able to tell the truth. And I feel as if I’m living a half life.

Before what happened in September, I’d say I was relatively good at speaking up. I’d worked so hard to start opening up in small, but authentic ways. But after that happened, I knew I had to focus. I couldn’t let what happened effect my work. It did once. But that was it. But now it’s like everything is meeting in the middle all at once and I’m standing on a ledge just waiting for the perfect gust of wind.

I don’t want to die. Not really. But, the number of times I’ve said in my head this week “kill me” or “I just wish I was dead” or “I wish I could just sleep, no dreams, just sleep for a couple of year, or lose my all of memories” is concerning at this point even for me. I just really, really want to find that in between place, not asleep, not awake, just not conscious or feeling anything at all. I just need my brain to stop for a day so I can think clearly and not want to die or forget.

I grew up in a religious family. And as an adult, I eventually adopted some of that in my own way. But every time I make a mistake, or wish to die, I feel so ashamed. If I killed myself would God still love me? Does he even love me now? My head is so fucked up all the time. And sad. I just really want to not feel sad. Just for a little while. So I can stop feeling sick. And so that maybe I can find a second of happiness to remind me of what hope looks like.

I took 500mg of diphenhydramine last night. Just to sleep. Just a normal nights sleep, with no nightmares. No waking up. I still had panic attacks. 500. fucking. mg. that’s enough to kill a kid. And that’s how much I took to sleep. Is there just some point in human life when we say enough is enough, this is unbearable? Because that’s where I’m at. On the outside, I’m mildly funny, intelligent enough, a decent singer and a good enough worker. empathetic and maybe a little insecure. But more than that? I’m tired.

inside and out. I am tired. and I just need everything to stop, just so I can get my bearings and keep going with life, without switching between wanting to live and wanting to die.

 

 

2020, The Year That Almost Killed Everyone…Sorta

This year has bee absolutely insane. I’ve tried to wrap my head around it, try to make it all make sense but I just can’t. Like, I feel as if I am watching my life happen around me and none of it makes any sense but I can’t move. I’m just watching it all go to hell.

Earlier, this year, my coworker went to India for a month, and because of this, my year already started off nuts. My schedule was sporadic and all over the place. Then two weeks later, boom, covid. As if the job I love wasn’t already crazy and frustrating enough, add on the dose of a pandemic and everything just goes down the drain.

Our hours were cut down to 16 a week and even though I was paid better than most, I was still barely cutting it, and with less than 40 hours a week, after insurance and taxes, I was bringing home around $320 every two weeks.

I had been thinking about leaving Cardiac since I got back lol. Ok, so maybe not that bad, but it hadn’t been what they told me it was going to be. The person I was on a team with, who they said would be there when I started, had put his 2 weeks in and they didn’t tell me. He left two days after I started. The person they asked me to help train, with no training of my own, was fired after a week, and then they asked me to train the new person who came in a week later. Me. not the other person who had been with the company for over 20 years. Me. then 2 months later they switch her to a new department.

I loved Cardiac. And honestly, I had hoped to stay for as long as I possibly could. It was a dream to be back, because the first time I quit, I wasn’t in a good place. But this time, I had so much hope that it would be better. And I guess, to a degree, it was. I loved my doctors. The good ones at least. They taught me so much, helped me significantly with building my confidence with interacting with the doctors and working under pressure. But, it was time to go.

I work with the county now, working as a covid investigator. It’s obviously temporary, but I’m hoping it gets my foot in the door with future opportunities. I ended up buying a used macbook to help since my chromebook was basically a glorified flip phone, and I’m grateful that this was even an option for me.

This year has been good and bad. I feel like I’ve finally found a medicine that helps with my ptsd, anxiety, depression and disassociation. I’ve spent almost 9 years trying medications, having bad side effects, and struggling to even out. I had a bad night last night, but I’m just trying to remind myself that it will and does help, and dark, bad moments are just part of life. It got pretty dark last night and so it has made me nervous that maybe it’s not working as it should, but I know it’s all apart of the process.

In addition to the current craziness of the pandemic, job changes, dental procedures and medications, more and more black people have been killed by the police. There were protests in every state, and so many countries. It seems as if the US if willfully ignorant to the systemic racism in so many of the policies and practices. The cheer about the goodness of so many past actions that brought the US to be in the place that is now, while simultaneously, acting as if the past problems have no long term effects on our current society.

Racism is loud these days. Not that it was ever quiet, but more white people are noticing. But the thing is, most black people are used to this. White people are getting up in arms and seemingly personally offended about what’s happening. It’s great that they care so much, however, this white savior complex comes flying in, and all of a sudden they are doing things and performing as if to prove to everyone that they aren’t racist. Performative allyship isn’t allyship at all. Even though in this day and age, using social media can be a good source of communication, it has to go beyond that. I don’t want white people to feel guilty. It’s not about that. It’s about change, at the foundation, for future generations. And maybe, one day, hopefully for us too.

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I haven’t written pretty much all year, so I feel as if I’m playing catchup for all of the things that are on my brain.

Today is July 7th. My life changed forever on July 14th, 2010. And then again on September 4th of 2019. It’s hard for me to process all of the thoughts and emotions that have been sifting through my brain. It doesn’t feel real, all the things that have happened. I feel sad because I know I’m not the girl I used to be. It feels as if I am mourning my own death. But I am the only one mourning the death of this girl. I feel entirely disconnected from myself. Entirely separate from my body. I feel sick when I touch my own skin. It doesn’t matter where. I don’t have any connection to this body that I am in.

Honestly,  I feel in shock of my body and the person that I am. I don’t even know how to relate to myself. I know that I’ve become more callous. I can’t remember the last time I cried, but I know when everything happened in September, I consciously shut off the part of my brain that processes. I didn’t want it to effect my work, not again. But it still did, just in a different way.

I’d like to rediscover myself. But also, I don’t want to. I can’t decide whether to connect or disconnect from myself.

Betrayal

The last few months have been insanely hectic. With work, covid, and preparing and i preparing for changes that seem to happen when I least expect it. It’s been trying. And my head has, well, had to managed to stay on relatively straight for about 3 months of constant change. But. I suppose everything falls apart eventually.

About two weeks ago, with a stuffy nose, headaches, eye pain, body pain, the whole covid gambit, I felt myself deteriorating. Concerned that I was coming down with the virus, I saw my doctor and she recommended I get tested. Spoiler: though my results haven’t come back, I’m mostly confident that I didn’t contract the virus. But. That’s not what this about.

A few days ago, about a week into quarantine, I started feeling weird. Growing up in a Christian environment and professing the faith for myself, I’ve still massively struggled with the idea of God. Who’s this big guy in the sky? And the fuck won’t be do anything about the shit happening in our world. I run the length of anger and confusion and devastation on a daily basis. And I guess this week it was time for it to rear it’s ugly head.

I began to wonder about the impact of trauma and abuse on my abilities, or lack there of, to trust in this being called God. I looked back on my childhood, the few parts my brain allows me to remember and I began to wonder. Can Stockholm Syndrome be caused by a violent childhood? I tried a quick search on google, but after too many entry questions and not enough emotional wherewithal, I decided against it. I didn’t want to know.

I’ve spent a major pet of my adulthood and even childhood trying to force myself to move forward. To not hold grudges. And I genuinely, truly believed that I’d let so much of it go. I felt no anger to those who hurt me. But a compassion and love that made me cry my eyes out whenever I thought about it. But was it really love? Now I’m not sure. That night, I went to bed, and was immediately flooded with nightmares of my childhood. Things I’d believe to let go.

I woke they next morning, after a fitful night of sleep, in tears. Crying my eyes out in the dark, trying to make sense of my dreams. And all I could think was, why did you hurt me? Why couldn’t you be gentle? Why couldn’t you be kind? Why didn’t you love me? Love me enough to not hurt me? In my dream I’d lost my fucking shit. Screaming and crying and yelling. Willing them to hit me just so I could hit them back. I was so hurt. And I was so angry. I just wanted to be held.

I felt betrayed by the people who I thought were supposed to protect me. And when I realized this, I saw how that thread of betrayal wove it’s way through the entirety of my life. I’ve often felt betrayed by others’ disloyalty. It might be slight but it felt so crushing to me. Because I felt like I wasn’t worth loving. Wasn’t worth fighting for. Wasn’t worth protecting. And even after the abuse, all I’d want was for them to take me back. Accept me. Forgive me. For whatever it was. And the same hands that hurt me embraced me. And as I recognize now, really harmed me. My emotional maturity.

However, I also feel guilty. I feel as if I’m betraying them now. Because people change, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. But it also hurts. It hurts to the core that this happened. And I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to shame anyone who has hurt me. But. I don’t know if I’ll ever heal if I never talk about it. My life goal has always been to not y’all about the people in my family who have hurt me until they’ve passed. That way I can’t hurt them, while truthfully communicating how I feel. But. I didn’t realize that I was letting myself die in the process.

The last few days I’ve felt a heavy pot on my stomach. Not focused on the feelings much, but not knowing where to go from here. How do I recover? Do I want to? Do I just want to end it all? But that’s selfish. I know it. And even though they’ve hurt me, I don’t want to hurt them. I guess the difference is, when they hurt me I was a stupid kid, on the receiving end on so much fluctuating emotions coming from adults who all I really wanted was to love me. Not for who I could be. But for who I was. Completely imperfect and confused and needing love. I was just a child.

I’m not sure what bruised me harder, the hands and the belts and the hangers. Or the words that were said when they were upset. Or the loneliness that crept into my heart. Desperate to know how I could get them to love me again…without hurting me.

TLC, But Not For Me.

It’s been a rough week. Maybe because I ran out of meds at the beginning? I wasn’t sure if they were helping but if this week has been any indication then I think they have been. Or it’s just been a shit week.

Without going into to many details, there’s been a change in my family. And honestly the level of fear and anxiety I feel right now is insane. And it’s got me thinking.

It’s really, really painful. The other day my friend joked about me being the black sheep in the family. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself that. But I’ve been feeling that. When I was younger, I went through a lot of fucked up stuff. My brothers didn’t. This led me to act out more I think. My thoughts even as a kid were always darker I just didn’t say them aloud. I didn’t have much help though. My parents didn’t know what was going on. And when they did, it was evident that they believed it to be my fault. Not ever asking me.

I remember when I was in 7th it 8th grade, I was on the school bus. It was right before Christmas. This kid on the bus came up behind me as I was putting up my window and began rubbing his naked… you know, on me. I froze. It hadn’t been the first time a boy had touched me without consent. No that started even younger, when I was a in elementary school by a family member. I was so distraught about the situation. One because I believed it was wrong, but also because I wanted attention, love and affection. That situation wasn’t even close to any of that. But I was 11.

I went home that day, writing in my journal what happened. A family member found my journal and consequently. I was spanked, arms out, then made to stand in a corner while my journal was read to me. I was then hauled to school, the boy was suspended. My parents were furious and I was wasn’t allowed to ride the bus for the rest of the year. In that moment, I made the conscious decision not to trust my parents, not to ask for their help for anything. And to never open up again. I’d take the affection I was given from boys, because at least it didn’t hurt. But I still longed for the affection from my parents. Aches for it. I was constantly haunted by the fear of them dying and leaving me. But so angry when they hit me. But so desperately wanting their love and affection even after they hit me. It’s fucked. I remember waiting and hoping they’d not be angry with me anymore, even though they hurt me.

My parents are different people now. They’ve grown and become better people. I don’t know if they’ll ever apologize for what they did, but it’s not like I’m waiting for an apology either. They didn’t help me much with any of the things that hurt me. The things I didn’t understand. But they made sure I never went without, supported my theatre and singing. And challenged me in school. So, I became successful in the things that mattered to them. Or I tried. But at some point I just realized I couldn’t come to them broken.

As I said, they’re different now. And as my brothers go through challenging times, they are the most supportive loving versions of them that I’ve ever seen. And I’m grateful. But I can’t help the sick feeling I get when I see them supporting my brothers through their stuff, knowing I never had that. Part of me is jealous. Part of me is angry. Part of me is so fucking bitter. Another part of me is deeply lonely.

My friends became my support system. But my friends are also a little batshit. And I love them for it. But as an adult now, it’s different. And life feels more sad. Because I have taught myself from a young age to be fiercely independent. To keep all family at an arms length. So if they hurt me it wouldn’t hurt too much. And if they died it wouldn’t crush me. But I am still crushed. Watching my parents champion my brothers, wondering why they couldn’t be that for me.

Fucked up sexual abuse as a child really changed the course of my life. But no one in my family talks about it. I was told that the person who did it isn’t in a place to have such a direct conversation. That essentially I’d have to move on. But how do you move on from a weight that sits on your chest that feels like a million pounds? From a fear that it will happen again to another child? I feel sick. I’ve cried so much about it the last few days. And I’ve distanced myself from my family. I don’t want to be like that. But it doesn’t feel safe. And I’m tired. I’m so so tired.

And I’m alone. Willingly and not so willingly Im alone. Because I can’t turn back the time. I can’t ask them to give me the love and support I always needed. I somehow have to create it for myself, even while watching everyone from the sidelines receive the care and support they need, while the hole in my heart grows just a little bit bigger.

Springtime

It’s not quite spring, but as February starts to come to a close I feel those feelings that I do every spring. I can’t explain it. People love spring and summer. They love the brightness, warm sun, the flowery air. The rushing water and chirping crickets. The smells of mulch and chlorine. They love it.

I don’t know how I feel. I can enjoy it separately if I look at it in parts. I enjoy the chipping of crickets. The smell of a bonfire. Driving with my windows down. I think that’s it.

This time of year feels overwhelming. Like full of life that I can’t quite connect with. That maybe my younger self found pleasure in but not safety. And how I crave to be safe. Spring is when I started experimenting too much. Spiraling into all the things I thought would make me feel good.

Spring reminds me of senior year, when I almost didn’t graduate. That was the first time my depression really crept up on me. Somewhere between junior and senior year of high school o plummeted.

Spring is when Eric and I broke things off. The guy I thought I would marry, the first one anyway. I cried for months. That was maybe the first time I didn’t have a filter for the pain, except in sex and other guys. I was devastated. I wanted to be a good Christian. But I hated everything.

Early summer is when I lost my virginity. I remember the day. And then a year later, 12 days after, I’d be raped by the same man I gave my virginity to. It was one of the first times as an adult I consciously knew I couldn’t ask my parents for help.

Spring is when a lot of people died around me. And all I could do was helplessly watch. And summer is when I gave myself away again and again. I didn’t want to be the girl that was so traumatized that I started acting out sexually. But I was. Time and time again. Spring summer fall winter.

I could cry writing this. I feel it in my throat, my head heavy and my eyes burning. But what would it do to help? I’m broken, maybe irreversibly so. I can’t forget. And I want so much to forget. I see people loving normal, whole lives and I wonder if i could have had that if my life had been different. If I didn’t go through what I’ve been through. I sort of feel ruined. I think maybe I am. Because every time I smell the spring air, I’m only reminded of the days that shattered me, beyond repair.

“Shhhh…”

I laid there, face down, my face smushed into my pillows as my body froze in shock. When you walked in that night, I felt my stomach turn. You’d been asking to come over for ages. I’d turned you down. You and I had always had chemistry, played dirty. But after the time where you claimed you couldn’t hear me, and my progressive spiral into letting you use me after trying to make myself believe it, I didn’t know if I could trust you.

It’d been 3 years. 3 years and you’d saved every picture. You’d text me periodically asking me how I was. You’d said you hadn’t been with anyone since me. To be honest I wasn’t ever sure if I really was into you, but I liked talking to you, and you lavished me in attention. You pursued me. I wondered if my lack of immediate I te rest had more to do with me being stuck up rather than you having some sort of flaw. But after the last time, I didn’t trust it. So I pushed you away for years, until I didn’t.

You’d asked to come over. Said you’d drive to the area, and let me decide from there what I wanted to do. I remember pulling myself together, trying to ease my heart to be calm. I’d seen you before. We’d been together before. There was no reason for me to be so worked up. I threw on some sleep clothes and made myself look decent. I didn’t know what would happen. But I guess I had an idea. I wasn’t against it completely. But I guess I was just scared. I had texted you before and told you how anxious I was, how the last time hurt me and I needed you to be patient with me. Not to try anything. You’d responded kindly saying you completely understood and would be happy just to talk in, see me, give me a hug and then leave. I remember thinking that was so sweet, so I let my guard down some. Now I wish I hadn’t.

I felt you, there, and my hands froze. They’d been grasping at the sheets. I wasn’t sure what was happening. If you were just passing by. I wasn’t sure what your intentions were. Then you pushed, and I felt my breath rush out of me with a force, as if I’d had the air knocked out of me. Immediately I started saying “no no no no” but I couldn’t get my body to respond. I couldn’t shake my fear. My breath was coming out in rapid pants. All you said was “shhh” and “it’s alright sweetheart.” Then you pushed more. And more. And more.

I started to cry realizing what the fuck was happening. But my body was frozen. My pleads and my tears got louder, but you just reprimanded me, hands on shoulders. And I let myself sink. I sunk into the pillows, letting my cries wrack my body. I wasn’t even angry with you. I was angry with me. For trusting. For believing. For hoping.

It felt like an eternity, but it was only a minute or two. You pulled away, not finishing. And I had sunken into this dark place in my head. I couldn’t believe that I was here. Again. Shame are away at me as I tried to rationalize what you did. Accident? Maybe you didn’t hear me? Again? How the fuck did you not hear me again. But I needed to make it make sense. Because even as I sat up, still crying, my hands shaking I knew that something was completely wrong with what just happened.

How could I admit that I’d been raped again? That the guys I tend to like like me pliable and I’d liked them a little rougher. but some liked me more than just pliable. More like a shell. Like a empty being. a toy. How could I confess that I froze. That my fear was the freeze kind. I didn’t know how to fight. My brain just shut down and sent me into a place where I left my body to a degree just so I could withstand what was happening? How could I tell anyone that I let this happen to me. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

You watched me cry, and take a big drink of water. I tried to stay calm and asked you to leave. You tried to comfort me, which made me cry more. I felt sick. I felt betrayed. But by you or by my own doing I couldn’t tell. You tried to hold me but I just needed you leave. To go.

I texted you later, my disbelief finally vocalized, and you said that if we had a safe word like “unicorn”, because I loved unicorns, you would have known to stop. But since we didn’t, you didn’t. But we had never used a safe word. Ever. We never had to. But now it was my fault. Because I let you in. I gave you what you wanted but it wasn’t enough. You stole more. You stole it all. A part of me died that day. Through all the fucked yo stuff I’ve been through in my life, that felt like the cherry on top. The last straw. I can’t take anymore. You got what you wanted, and broke me in the process. I don’t know who I am anymore.

And I don’t like unicorns anymore.