Survival Reprisal

… I was 12 when horrible things really started happening. Which means I have been only a child when it comes to “normal” … normal for me, that is. I have not been a grown-up without it. I have grown up victimized and overwhelmed by what happened… this to me basically means I really don’t know who I am – who on earth does know who they are already at just 12?? The stuff I would have learned about myself if I hadn’t gone through what I did would have happened naturally over time.

Instead, what I learned was survival skills and clinging to a semblance of just plain existence… anything that didn’t end with the complete annihilation and total destruction of myself and my life. I scrapped and fought and battled… but by the time I came out of the other end, I was irreparably damaged. But – I still held onto the small miracle that I was not destroyed. I still cling to that with hope that I can re-build what is left, and create something new from it. Using my experience, I need to learn that I have been forever changed, and I am not the person I was once supposed to be. Instead, I need to use those battle-scars to remind me that I can overcome anything, and nothing will be beyond my capability. I have been to Hell and back, danced with the Devil, and I won. Nothing, but nothing, will ever be worse than that. Everything will be monumentally trivial in comparison…

And here remains some of my problems… after doing such harsh battle for all my life, I no longer know what it is to be “peaceful”. I know not what it is to be relaxed, not to succumb to the waiting game of foreseeing the next disaster, the next battle, the next war. Instead, to “cope”, I seem to need to look for issues to “cope” with… so my mind thinks all is well … Better The Devil You Know …

The little things matter because now, there is no big thing to fight. So I fight whatever I can, because it’s the only life I’ve ever known. Instead, re-learning to stop, Keep Calm and Carry On … Learning to let go, don’t sweat the small stuff … Count your blessings in your life, because you know what …. You fought hard to earn one. I earned my life, I fought for it, and I never gave up on it. Now I need to look at how I can re-learn how to be cool, calm, focused and confident. Strong, without being aggressive; cool and calm without being afraid of attack; Smiling without fear of reprisal…

For decades I’ve believed: There’s no smile of an Angel without the Wrath of God … for each moment of happiness you must pay the price. Because that is exactly how it’s been. Now, it no longer has to be that way … Trust must slowly be built, and one day I will be able to smile without having to look over my shoulder with trepidation.

Until then, I will keep trying to find my Phoenix; I shall learn to rise, to fly, to smile… to trust and be happy. Happier, at least.

Something Better Out There For Me...

You want to know my heart and what is truly in it? Can you open your mind long enough to find out?

I’m doing that and coming to come very surprising conclusions about myself.

In slowly working out and following the pathways of skewed logic my mind has walked down, to where it has now lead me, I’m seeing things in a way that is surprising to me and different to what I imagined the outcome would be. I have truly surprised myself as to how lost and lonely my mind, spirit and soul have become, and how it has manifested certain things to cope with what once happened.

Survival skills that once were the only thing I had to cling to, that were keeping me alive, are now backfiring … They are no longer needed, and instead are simply getting in the way of moving on. Like drifting in the sea with a lifeboat … once you come ashore there is no more need for it, but instead I drag it around land as if it still holds my salvation. Instead, it just drags along and slows me down, reminding me of the harrowing tempests that I have clung onto it through.

My heart has cried for what it has lost. My soul has mourned for things that were and things that will now never be. I still feel the loss greatly, and I have a confusing illness that makes it all the more difficult to see the light of life when its demons raise their ugly heads and fevered eyes.

But, somehow, I am slowly learning those demons and my life are not a foregone conclusion. They are simply what is still attached to my life-raft I am still hugging for security.

Instead of being unable to deal with the “Big” stuff, I have been amazingly incapable of living without it. 18 years of it have brought me to expect nothing less, and anything else is just “wrong”… I have been brought to my knees, still fighting … but I have failed to look up, and realise that, finally, the battle is now over, and a new life needs to begin. I have “survived” for so long, I do not know how to live.

I cannot heed Frankie’s words and “Relax” … I fear to do so would be inviting an attack on the defenceless and weak. If I relax, what then? Do I fear an attack from behind? An attack from my blind-spot where I’m finally knocked for dead? Can I possibly relax and enjoy?

I recently read something … a new “Buzzword” they claimed it was, and along with it, shining examples of such a thing … Resilience. “Instead of Post-Traumatic Stress, Post Traumatic Growth” …

As a Phoenix rising from the ashes, is it possible to not change, but be better? Using for good – racking it to experience, like a difficult job on a CV? … somehow, on the surface, it seems to belittle the very horrifying times and tragedy that happened … It was something bad … It was something awful … it was something … It was just something! You can’t just dismiss it as quickly as a job you once had… Can you….???

But then, think about it … Think about the fact that if experience is not met with analysis and acceptance, and those experiences are clocked up to life-skills, you could end up with a new “Portfolio” – but of Resilience. A feather in your cap to know that you lived through it and survived … even if it’s not fully-intact, you made it through. There will always be a tale of even more tragedy for whatever you’re going through – because if you’re still here you made it … There will be stories out there somewhere of those souls who didn’t.

In my case, there are more than enough people out there who have succumbed to depression enough to throw themselves at death with such vigour – suicide being the only viable option they can deal with. I’ve been there, then made the decision to turn back. OK, that meant my stomach had to be pumped, and I was forced to drink the most god-awful concoction of Liquid Charcoal to dilute anything that was still left in me… but the bottom line was that I was the one who voluntarily requested to go to hospital, I was the one who stopped taking the pills, and I was the one who chose to survive. A few more pills and no hospital, I would have. Codeine is a strong bugger, and can easily do the job with enough of them in your system.

The Bottom Line is that I’m still here. And when I follow the journey my mind has made to survive, I’m being shown all the wrong turns it’s made. And Now, I will gently take my own hand, and lead me back to those wrong turns and show her the right ones. I will show her what the best way of being is. I will show her she can be strong, without being wound-up like a Clockwork Orange. I will show her she can be chilled and cool without being afraid of a back-door attack. I will show her she needs to be alive … because, well, she is.

I will show her the little things in life are what make it worth the hassle of living … walking under blue skies, crunching in snow, cuddling the cat, watching the tennis, reading all the books ever written by the best authors (which cannot be read if one is dead… obviously…), lying down and reading funky magazines, playing Ace Attorney on the DS, eating nice food (because it’s OK to eat – really… It’s OK), and the best thing in life of all …. Coffee At Starbucks!!!

Oh, and of course, the bestest thing of all to live for and enjoy … if she gives herself a true chance to … To live and love and cherish her Sweetest Sweetheart of all.

… Break it down, build it back up … and live for life and living … Somewhere, somehow … There really was Something Better Out There For Me …

And maybe now I ought to get back into my Tardist, press the button for 2010 … and return to the Future, where it’s all over.

Somehow, with faith, and hard work, and true hope and belief…. It’s All Over Now.