I’m fucking tired

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I’m tired.

I’m really wondering how much longer my body (and my sanity) can go on with no sleep.

How much longer can I go to work, half out of it from exhaustion, before I get let go?

How can I write papers for school every week when I barely have the energy to sit at my desk?

How many times am I going to tell my therapist “I don’t know, I can’t think” because I’m literally so exhausted that my brain can’t function?

I wonder if I exist. Do I even matter here? Just carrying on life like I’m not here, locked in my room. I have needs. I need heat and warmth and quiet and safety. I need to sleep.

Anything is better at this point. Maybe I’ll just tell the hospital I want to die so I can get a bed and go to sleep there. I’m going to end up there, anyway, at this point. Exhaustion and desperation will push you to do things you have no business doing. And that never ends well for me. This is the beginning of a breakdown I don’t have time to have.

I just want to sleep for awhile. Is that too much to ask for?

I’m fucking tired.

Through the Eyes of DID

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday, Grief Diaries: Through the Eyes of DID was published.

I was fortunate enough to be able to share part of my story, as I was one of the contributing writers for this book.

I had a lot of mixed emotions about being a part of this book. I actually changed my mind a few times before finally deciding to go through with it.

I still carry a lot of shame and guilt for what happened to me. I still believe, in some ways, that my childhood was my fault. I thought, if anyone reads this, they are going to think I was a horrible child. They are going to believe I am a horrible person. How bad a child I must have been for my own mother to treat me like that. How weak of a woman I must have been for allowing the abuse to keep happening. How crazy I am with this diagnosis.

It’s not like I haven’t spoken about it all before. I’ve been vocal about my trauma in social media. I write publicly about my disorder on my professional blog, under my real name. I write about everything on here, under not-so-anonymous anonymity. But this was something different. This was my life, attached to my real name, printed in a book, available across the world for anyone to read.

And then there was the issue of protecting the people who hurt me. I felt bad for labeling my abusers. I could have just said someone abused me. I didn’t have to name names. But who was that helping? Who was that protecting? It wasn’t helping me. It wasn’t protecting me. It was helping and protecting my mother. It was helping and protecting my father. And I didn’t owe them help or protection. I didn’t owe them anything.

I’ve held so much anger against the people who failed to protect me from my mother, and here I was doing that same exact thing — protecting her. The woman who stole my childhood. The woman who took away my innocence. The woman who broke me again and again. It’s bad enough to be abused, but to be abused by your own mother, the one person who is supposed to nurture, love, and care for you — that is a whole other level of pain. It’s a pain I want people to know about, because I want them to realize that it can happen to anyone. I want people to know that mothers can hurt their children, just like anyone else can.

So I did it. I admitted my mother abused me.

My biological mother was my main abuser. I call her my biological mother because it’s difficult to call her mother sometimes. I acknowledge that she gave birth to me, but her motherly qualities stopped there. For simplicity, I will refer to her as my mother, but I’d like to believe that real mothers don’t abuse their own children.

But that was not my only struggle in writing for this book.

In collaborating with the other writers who also had DID, I realized that I am just not at that level of acceptance yet. The other writers were so okay with announcing how many parts they had. They knew all their parts’ names and what purpose they had in the system.

And then there was me. How many parts do I have? Too many to count right now. What are their names? I don’t know. I know a few. But not all of them have names. I don’t keep a tally. I don’t keep an attendance sheet. Just the other night, I was kept awake by a voice inside that kept saying Sadie wants to color and all I could think was who the FUCK is Sadie? Because I just don’t know. I don’t know my parts. I don’t know me. I am a failure here, among all of these perfectly organized and knowledgeable people with DID.

I’m not going to lie. Seeing what others wrote made me feel like shit. I thought maybe I shouldn’t be writing for this book, because my DID is as chaotic as my life is, and that’s not the image that anyone else was portraying.

But then I remembered that I’m not supposed to be perfect, and my DID sure as hell doesn’t have to be perfect, either.

So I wrote my reality. I wrote of my shame in having more parts than I cared to admit. I admitted I didn’t know everything that was going on, inside and outside my head. I told of my struggles with drugs and alcohol, my suicide attempts, my fears about turning into an abuser. I wrote about how afraid I was of losing control and of losing my life. I opened myself up in a way I hadn’t before.

And now it’s all out there. The life I hid for so long. The parts of my life that I am still hiding. The denial. The failure. The fear. The struggle.

I don’t want to hide anymore. I shouldn’t have to.

You know me as Kyra Jack, but I’m also Crystalie.

I have DID.

I am a human being.

Crash

~ KJ ~ 10 Comments

I feel it coming.

That moment when the last string holding shit together finally breaks and everything comes spilling out. That moment when the last screw in the last hinge comes loose and the door flies right off the wall. That moment when everything comes crashing down because the weight is just too much to handle.

I am tired. Physically and emotionally spent. But I can’t even sleep anymore, between the noise in my head and the noise right outside my door. Every ring of the doorbell, every knock at the door, every 3 AM TV show played on volume 50, every fucking noise in the middle of the night — I hear it. And I can’t sleep.

And it drains me. At a time when my body needs the most rest, I am getting the least. The least sleep. The least food. The least of everything. I am running on fumes, and I’m waiting for the day when I finally run out of gas and drop to the floor.

I thought about going to the hospital, which is ironic considering I just fought my way out of there two weeks ago when I was sick. But there are things there that I can’t get right now: a safe place to sleep, three meals a day, quiet, and care. I need those things, right now more than ever.

But I can’t do that. I can’t just drop everything and pretend like my needs matter. The world doesn’t work like that. If I went to the hospital, I wouldn’t be able to go to work, and right now I can’t even afford a tissue to sneeze in. So what choice do I have? No matter what I do, I’m fucked in one way or another.

I try to get care in wherever I can. I stay at work just so I can have some peace and quiet. I sleep there, too. I feed myself off of unwanted food and value menu items I buy with the gift cards I got for Christmas. I use another gift card to go to the movies to give myself a break from my life for a little while. I don’t think my coworkers and friends will ever know how much their gifts have helped me get through these last couple weeks. They have indirectly been my source of care, of peace and sustenance.

This isn’t a way to live. I can’t do it anymore. I shouldn’t have to live like this. I shouldn’t have to sleep at work. I shouldn’t have to look for peace and solace in places that aren’t my home. I shouldn’t have to feel trapped inside my own room.

But don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I still get out of bed. I still go to work in the morning. I am still breathing.

Is that enough?

Terminate

~ KJ ~ 11 Comments

I think there are people in this world that just can’t be helped.

I think I am one of those people.

I tried. I really did.

I took every pill the doctors prescribed. Every anti-depressant that left me more suicidal than before. Every anti-psychotic that failed to stop the voices or the impulse to self-destruct. Every anti-anxiety pill that only took the edge off. Every mood stabilizer that sent me spiraling deeper into depression. Every sleeping pill, every stimulant, every off-label medication they tried to help me with has failed.

There is no pill for this. There’s no magic medicine, no chemical imbalance to correct.

My mind is broken in a way that can’t be fixed. You can’t put a splint on my brain. You can’t put a cast on my memories. You can’t fix something that’s been broken too many times for too long.

Maybe if someone had caught it early, I wouldn’t be this way. If someone spoke up instead of saying silent. If someone had questioned my mother instead of letting it go. If someone told her to stop instead of helping her. If someone feared her as much as they feared God. If someone had saved me, instead of leaving me behind.

But no one did any of that. And now I am here, shattered pieces held together by watered-down glue. Forever unstable, the slightest touch breaks me all over again.

There is no cure for this. There’s no way to undo what’s been done. I can’t hit rewind. I can’t start over. I can’t erase the pain in my heart because it’s been written in permanent ink.

Every time I was raped, molested, assaulted, beaten, burned — another piece of me was broken. A tiny crack on the surface was all anyone could see, but beneath that was complete brokenness. A soul left to die, a mind left shattered, both hidden underneath the face and body of an innocent child, an innocent child who didn’t know her innocence because it was stolen from her before she ever had a chance to experience it.

How does someone get over that? I think I would have rather been hurt by a stranger. Maybe I could have handled it better then. At least I would have known what love was, at least I could have had someone to turn to. But I didn’t have that, because the one person that should have loved and supported me and kept me safe was the person that hurt me night after night and taught me how to be afraid.

I tried to be helped. Every school guidance counselor, every social worker, every therapist. They tried. But they couldn’t help me, either. I took one last chance. I told myself if this didn’t work, then that was it for me. Fifteen years of medication and therapy failures is fifteen years too many. I didn’t want to go through it anymore. I gave up everything for this one last attempt at healing.

But I don’t think it’s working. The cost of my freedom has been permanent fear, a fear that can’t be helped. No matter what day it is, no matter where I am, I am living in fear of her. I’m afraid every morning when I try to take a shower without her. I’m afraid every afternoon when I’m walking home alone, waiting for her to come and kill me before I can get in the door. I’m afraid every time I go to bed, because I don’t know if she will come in and hurt me. I’m afraid every time I get sick, because I’m scared it means she will have to take care of me.

I’m in two worlds. One that’s the present and one that’s the past. One where I’m living and one where I’m dying. One where I’m grown up and one where I’m growing. I can’t tell the difference anymore. I don’t think I’m in one or the other. The worlds collided and now I am stuck in the middle, walking alone. I just want someone to walk with me. I want someone to understand what it’s like to be inside my mind. But that can never happen.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair for me to put other people through my chaos. My therapist can’t cure me. She can’t go inside my mind. She can’t walk with me. She can’t help me.

So maybe it’s time to let therapy go. Maybe I’m just supposed to live with the fear and the panic and the pain and the shame and the confusion. Maybe I’m lost because there isn’t a way home. Maybe I’m just supposed to exist like this.

Maybe they were right all along. I am too complex. I am a puzzle that can never be put back together because the pieces have been torn up, burned, and thrown away. And no one ever wants to put together a puzzle that doesn’t have all its pieces. It’s an effort destined for failure, no matter what you do, the puzzle can never be solved. I can never be fixed.

Help came too late.

Rage

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

In more ways than one, I am approaching rock bottom. Physically, psychologically, emotionally, financially. I am a disaster.

I left the hospital, but the truth is that I should still be there. And they all told me that. Every doctor I had to see. I don’t even know how many, because they all looked the same to me. Covered by masks and gowns, all I could decipher were voices, all saying the same thing. You are very sick.

I was not prepared. I thought I was just having trouble breathing. I shrugged it off until the coughing got worse, enough that I started coughing up blood on my way home from work. I took a detour to the ER, expecting a breathing treatment and a discharge. Instead I ended up with an admission to isolation with the avian flu, suspected pneumonia, and a COPD exacerbation.

I fought to get out. I left them with little choice; if they didn’t discharge me, I was leaving AMA, and they knew if I left without medication, I could get sicker and die. I still endured their lectures, their voices of concern. You’re very sick, they said. And all I could say to them was I’ve been through a lot worse.

I don’t know how much more my body can take. It’s been through hell, and I just keep making it worse. You would think I’d be doing my best to stay healthy, but I’m just pushing myself closer and closer to pain and death. I walked around aimlessly yesterday, in the cold, smoking cigarette after cigarette, cycling through fits of crying and fits of rage.

I had such an intense urge to die. I ran through the street as cars were turning in, but none of them hit me. Why can’t I just get that one distracted driver to do me in? I tried to cut my wrists, but I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking. Why can’t I just be strong enough to do it myself?

I think about getting high almost every day. I miss it. I miss not having to think about shit for awhile. I miss the feeling, the feeling that nothing else matters because you can stop giving a fuck about everything for awhile. Poverty is probably the only thing that has been saving me from that right now. I can’t even afford to live, let alone afford coke. But that’s my fault, too. I let people walk all over me, I let them take advantage of me because I’m just so afraid to say no, so worried about hurting people’s feelings at the expense of hurting myself and my own. I paid their bills when I should have just been paying my own. So now they are sitting with their new phones and tablets, and I’m selling mine just so I can afford one more week of therapy and another bag of rice. But it’s my fault. I can’t be mad at anyone else, so I hold it inside, just like I’ve held everything else for so long.

I’ve been thinking about calling my mother. To say what, I don’t know. Maybe to say I’m sorry for being such a horrible daughter. Maybe to hear her voice, to sense her familiar anger. Maybe to ask her why, why she had to do the things she did, the things that have led me where I am today.

Or maybe to let out my rage on her because the rage I’ve been unleashing on myself hasn’t been working. It just keeps building and building and I don’t know what else to do. But I know if I go on like this much longer, the rage will destroy me before anything else does.

Revive

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

She asked if I would allow them to perform life-saving actions. If my heart stops, do I want to be revived, if my lungs fail, do I want to be intubated.

I said, without hesitation, no thank you.

I think I took her by surprise. She told me again what it all meant, and I shrugged my shoulders. She doesn’t know how many times I’ve tried to die. She doesn’t know that it would just be an easier way out for me.

I’ve spent the last 16 years in and out of the hospital. I really hate the likelihood that the end years of my life will likely be spent in a hospital.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if my hospital experiences weren’t so laden with horror. Hospitals are supposed to be safe, healing spaces. But how could they be when that evil woman sat there next to me?

She was never there out of care and concern. She was there to control me. I lay there in my weakest moment and she took it all from me. And I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t tell her to leave.

Because no one would have understood. They thought she was a loving mother. They didn’t know she was a monster waiting to wreak her havoc. Because the monsters were never under my bed, they were always beside it.

I am trying to be strong. I crack a joke with the doctor. I take a selfie from my hospital bed. But I’m also crying. Because even though the chair next to me is empty, I can still see my mother there, waiting to hurt me.

Don’t revive me. Don’t intubate me. Don’t save my life. I’d rather die than keep remembering.

A Letter to Us

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

Dear younger parts and me,

I know things seem really scary right now. It’s okay to feel scared. I’m scared, too. You had to be scared in the past, because there were a lot of scary things and scary people. But you are safe now. We are safe. You don’t have to be scared anymore.

I know that mommy made you believe that you were sick. She told you that parts of you made you bad. I know she made that part of you hurt really bad. I know she made your heart hurt, too. I’m so sorry she hurt your body, and your heart. Little girls shouldn’t have to hurt like that.

I know you wanted so badly to be a boy. You thought that it would make everything better. You believed that it would stop mommy from hurting you, that you wouldn’t be sick anymore, that mommy would love you like she loved R. I’m so sorry you felt that way. But it was never your fault. You were never sick there. You were never bad just because you were a girl. Mommy was wrong. So wrong. There was nothing you could have ever done to make mommy love you. She was the sick one. She was bad. Not you. It was never you. You were always perfect. You still are.

I know you’re still so scared of mommy hurting you. You still try to protect yourself from her hurt. I’m so sorry you don’t feel safe. Little girls deserve to feel safe and loved and respected. Mommy shouldn’t have stolen that from you. You deserved all the love and respect and safety in universe. I wish I could have given it all to you then, but I can give you them now.

I know that mommy made you think that your body was not your own. She controlled your body and your mind. You had no other choice. I’m sorry she made you believe that lie. But you have choices now. Your body is yours. These are your toes, your feet, your legs, your arms, your fingers, and your eyes. This is your hair, your nose, and your mouth. And this is your vagina. It belongs to you. It’s part of your body, just like all of your other parts that make you, you.

It isn’t sick or bad. It doesn’t deserve to be hurt. It deserves to be taken care of, just like you. In order to take care of it, we need to go to the doctor. Just like the doctor that takes care of our lungs, and another doctor takes care of our feet, we need a doctor to take care of our vagina. It’s not bad or wrong to go to the doctor. All of those things that mommy said, they were wrong. She was wrong. She was just trying to scare you, and make you feel bad. I’m sorry she lied to you. You are not — and never were — dirty or bad. The doctor knows that, too. The doctor just wants to help us, and make sure we are healthy and strong. The doctor won’t hurt us. She won’t make you feel like mommy did. I promise.

I know you are afraid. You’re just a little girl. Mommy made you do things that children should never have to do, or see, or know. I’m sorry she did that to you. But you don’t have to do grown-up things anymore. You don’t have to hurt anymore. You don’t have to be scared or ashamed. Mommy isn’t here, and you can be you now. A beautiful, kind, loving, healthy, wonderful GOOD little girl. Mommy can’t take that away from you. She tried, but she didn’t know how brave and strong and courageous you were. She didn’t know the amazing little girl you grew up to be.

You can be that little girl now. I can take care of the big girl things, like going to the doctor. I will keep us healthy and safe. I will make sure that we are okay. I promise.

Thank you for being so strong. It’s my turn now.

Love,

KJ

Dysfunctional function

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

I’ve been going through the process of applying for disability.

I started the application in June, but hesitated finishing it because I had a lot of self-doubt. There was some fear in being rejected. There was a lot shame in needing help. I told myself I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I told myself I didn’t need this help, I just needed to be stronger.

I struggle with asking for help in general, but when it comes to finances, it’s even more difficult. My parents were not rich, but my father had a well-paying job that should have allowed us to live comfortably. My mother was irresponsible, and wasted money on material bullshit instead of paying the bills. She always had the newest phones, but could not pay the wireless bill. She had an abnormal abundance of home decor, but could not pay the electric bill. She’d guilt people into paying her bills. She used other people as a means of financial support, and I always hated that.

And I feel like I am doing the same thing by trying to get financial assistance. I feel like I am in some way able to do more than I am doing, that I’m just putting my money into the wrong things, just like my mother had done.

But I’m not. I’m putting my money into all the right things. I pay my rent every month. I pay all of my bills, even if it’s just the minimum payment. I pay my therapist every week. I’m not irresponsible at all. I’m not like my mother. But it’s still not enough. I am still not worthy.

I tried to work more. It lasted all of four days. I can only handle so much in one day before I get completely exhausted. I wish I could work full-time, but I know it would be disastrous; not only for me, but for those who would be working with me. Three hours into the day, and I’m already emotionally spent. Five hours into the day, and I’m already physically exhausted.

But I’m still working. I’m still earning a paycheck. And I am afraid that alone will get me rejected. They don’t understand that my paycheck doesn’t even cover all the basic necessities. They’re not there some months when I have to figure out how to get enough food to eat with $15. They don’t see the times I had to pay my rent with cash advances. They don’t know how much I sacrifice just to pay for therapy.

They will think I’m too able to be disabled, that I function too well to deserve any help. But they don’t see the dysfunction in my function.

They are not with me every morning when I can barely make it out of bed to take a shower. They are not there with me each morning I walk to the bus stop in tears because I’m so depressed and lost and scared of life. They do not see the panic attacks I go through at work, all the times I cry in the bathroom, and the multiple emotional meltdowns I have in front of my coworkers.

They don’t see how sick I can get just from eating a meal. They don’t see me struggling to breathe, or throwing up in the parking lot because there’s just not enough room in my chest for me to breathe if my stomach is full. They can’t feel my constant nausea. They don’t know what it’s like to walk around with an invisible elephant on your chest.

They don’t see me crying on the bus on the way home because I’m just so exhausted. They don’t know how many meals I skip, because I’m either too tired to eat or I just don’t care enough to be nourished. They’re not there every time I get dizzy, every time I pass out because my body is constantly running on fumes.

They’re not with me every night when I spend hours laying in bed, just wishing for a decent night of sleep. They don’t know how many times I am startled awake by the cat downstairs, or a car down the street. They can’t see the nightmares that keep me awake through the night. They can’t see how exhausted I am every day, how much I struggle just to hold my head up.

They can’t see my flashbacks. They can’t feel my body memories. They don’t hear the voices I hear in my head every day, or the noise that seems to get louder and louder. They don’t feel the fear I experience every day of my life. They don’t know how badly I just want to die. They don’t understand how much effort it takes just for me to have a conversation with somebody.

They can’t see the depression, the anxiety, the fear and the panic that runs through my mind and body every single hour of every day. They don’t see the wounds I hide under my clothes, or the pain I try to bury away so I can make it through another day. They don’t understand how many times I should have been in a hospital, but couldn’t afford to be out of work. They don’t know how many moments I’ve lost because I can’t handle the stress, so I dissociate.

They don’t see any of that. All they can see is a person who is able, the same as everyone else sees. She works, she is not disabled. But they don’t realize that any other job would have fired me. They don’t see how much this life is destroying me.

In a way, my resilience is my downfall. It makes me people think I am much better than I really am.

I am shattered glass inside of a shatter-proof box. No one can see the catastrophe that exists inside, because they only focus on what they see on the outside.

I am true dysfunction, hidden by perceivable function.

I am a mess

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

These past two weeks have been difficult. So difficult that I could barely speak about the shitstorm that was inside my head, let alone write about it. I became emotionally constipated. My words, my emotions, they continued to build up — but none could find their way out. After awhile, it started to hurt.

It’s scary for me when that happens. It leaves me unable to communicate my needs. It prevents me from asking anyone for help.

And I desperately needed help. I was trying to be strong, but I could no longer hold myself up underneath everything that was piling on top of me. One thing, I could handle. But it was everything all at once. The unwanted correspondence with my mother, her finding out where I live, the holidays, my upcoming appointment with the doctor. The flashbacks, the memories. It was just too much at once, and I started to drown.

I was tired of the fear and the pain. I was tired of living. Tired enough that I ran out in front of a car in the middle of a busy highway one morning, hoping it would hit me and end my suffering. But the car didn’t hit me; it slowed down just in time. I walked back to the curb like nothing had happened. I went in to work like nothing had happened.

I could have died in that moment. The car could have not slowed down and I would have been struck and killed. But I couldn’t process that reality. Instead, I just pushed it away, as if it were some minor inconvenience like missing the bus or being late for work.

I didn’t tell anyone about it. I couldn’t understand what was going on inside my own mind, let alone try to explain that chaos to another person. But deep down, it scared me. It scared me that I got to the point of trying to die without any forethought at all. There was no warning. There were no red flags. I just got off the bus one morning and thought it would be better if I could just get hit by a car and end my life. There was no planning, no chance for intervention.

It scared me because even in my darkest moments, in the times that I want to die, there is something inside of me that wants to continue on, that wants to live. But that didn’t happen this time. There was no pull to live; only an impulse to die.

I became my own biggest enemy. Greater than the fear of my mother was the fear of myself. Because no matter how badly my mother wants to kill me, it will never be as much as I want to kill myself.

I finally broke down and told my therapist what happened. I wanted her to save me. I wanted her to say something that would flip the switch in my brain from death back to life. I was desperate, but even my desperation was full of false hope. I knew she couldn’t save me. No one could save me but me.

I told her I would be okay. I told her I could be safe. But I didn’t believe it.

I found other ways to cope. I started smoking again. I stopped eating. Because even though cigarettes and starvation won’t kill me today, I know that each puff of smoke I inhale, and each meal I skip brings me a little closer to the death I still believe I deserve. It’s a more acceptable form of self-induced pain; a discrete, prolonged suicide. And no one’s the wiser.

I’m still alive. I still go to work. I still go to therapy. I still do my schoolwork and write my articles like everything is okay. But it’s not really okay. I’m not okay. I am a mess. And it’s difficult for me to admit that. It’s difficult for me to write that down. I am a mess.

I want to be strong. I want to be able to say that shit doesn’t bother me. But I would be lying. So instead I say nothing at all. And I write nothing at all, I think in part because I don’t want my mother to see how much she affects me. I don’t want her to know that even from far away, she still causes me pain and heartache. I don’t want her to know my struggle, my fear, my pain, my misery. I don’t want her to feel like she’s won the battle, the battle that I never set out to fight in.

But in my silence, she is still winning, because silence is what she wanted all along. Silence is why I suffered as a child. Silence is why I still suffer today. I don’t want to be silent. I want to be able to say how I feel inside, through my voice and through my writing. I want to be able to ask for help when I need it. I want to be able to say that I am not okay when I am not okay. I want to be able to speak without fear.

I can’t do any of that if I’m silent. I have a lot to say. I won’t let her stop me.

My name is KJ. I am a mess. And that’s okay.

I tell them I’m fine

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

They say I look sad. They ask if I’m okay.

I tell them I’m fine. I tell them I’m just tired.

I can’t tell them the truth. I can’t tell them I’m not okay. I can’t explain that I’m tired of living.

So I lie. I lie to push them away. I lie so they don’t have to share the burden of my pain. I lie to protect them. I lie to protect me.

I don’t even understand what’s going on inside my own head. My thoughts don’t make any sense. All I can hear is noise. Loud noise.

I can’t find my words. I try to write, but nothing comes out right. I can’t talk about what’s inside. So I suffer in silence.

I just want them to stop. The memories. The flashbacks. I just don’t know anymore. I can’t tell if I’m 30 or 3. I can’t tell if I’m home or if I’m free.

Because I’m both. I’m living in two worlds at the very same time.

She’ll tell me I’m safe there, but she just doesn’t understand. I know my body is there, but my mind is somewhere else. A different place. A different time. A different me.

I dance on the line. One foot in, one foot out. It’s a line that only I can dance on, because it’s a line that only I can see. No one else sees it. No one else understands it. Only me.

They see me sitting on the couch, safe and fully clothed. That is my present. That is what everyone sees. But they don’t see what I see in my mind. They don’t see me standing in the bathtub of my childhood home, naked and afraid, awaiting my punishment. They can’t see that. Only me.

They see me working hard. They hear me crack a joke and laugh. But they don’t see what I see in my mind. They don’t see me burning in the flames, with every last bit of evil inside of my soulless body turning into a pile of ashes to be stomped upon and smashed into the dirt. They can’t see that. Only me.

I’m dancing the line. The line between past and present. The line between life and death. And I’m dancing alone.

I tell them I’m fine. But I’m not really fine. I never was. I’m not now. And I’m not sure I ever will be.