What lies beneath

When I am explaining what I'm going through to my husband, I often compare it to a physical injury that he can really visually imagine. Often this comes off more dramatically than I mean for it to. For instance if he were to wake up, come downstairs and ask me why I'm crying at the computer right now, I would tell him that I feel like someone slashed the sharp blade of a hatchet across my forehead and used a staple gun to patch up the open gaping wound. Pretty dramatic right? I would take physical injuries over my mental struggles any day. If someone saw me with an injury like that, they wouldn't ask me why I look upset. They would understand the hell I am going through without explanation. Instead, they look at me, seemingly normal. They think, "She looks fine to me, I don't get what she is so upset about.". 

Frequently, when I am having a tough day, I browse the internet looking for souls like mine. I search for people who remind me that I'm not the only one living like this. Today it didn't help as much as I would like. When you search for a PTSD community, 90% of the time you are going to find war veterans. I find it difficult to relate to that community because I wasn't in a far away place where I had been told what I would encounter. I was in my own home, my place of work, places where I lived under the illusion that I was safe. I'm not saying that being attacked in your own home is harder or more difficult to deal with than what veterans go through by any means. The struggles they deal with are similar and they have to deal with them in their personal space when they come home. It just isn't something I can relate to. I wasn't out to fight a huge battle, I was just trying to live my normal life.

I wonder how the men who have victimized me in the past would feel if they knew the lasting affects that were created by their actions. Would they apologize? Would they feel any guilt or remorse? Would they wish to take it back? Maybe they wouldn't care at all. Victims walk down the street seeing their attackers face in every stranger they pass. Do attackers ever think of their victims? Do they wonder where we are, what we are doing, and worry about an encounter with us in the future? I don't think they do. I imagine that they rarely give us a second though. 

It is a lonely feeling. I know I have an army of people who love, believe in and support me. But when I leave the house, I don't take that army with me. I'm alone, open, vulnerable. 

My past is proof that I don't have the strongest luck on my side. In the past I have heard people say that while what I went through sucks, the odds of it happening again are slim. It happens again and again. Wrong place wrong time. They say I'm too nice, too friendly. I wish I could be nice and friendly. I used to love striking up conversations with strangers. I simply cannot conduct myself that way anymore. I've been burned, boiled even. 

I know this is long, I know that it is late. I had to vent, get it out of my head. I had to try to calm the static noise buzzing in my head and calm the crazy. Sometimes it feels like I can literally feel the crazy stirring in my head. Most of all I am just scared to fall asleep. No good comes from my dreams. I just have to face it, it is time for bed. Thank you universe for giving me a place to release my mind. Goodnight Neverland.