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I hate the term “survivor”. I don’t want to be praised for staying alive. I wish it killed me. I’m not alive by my own decisions. They could have killed me anytime. I don’t want to be told I’m lucky they didn’t. I don’t want abuse to be painted as a “challenge” I happened to survive. I didn’t stay alive by my skills, I didn’t want to participate in abuse. It’s not a part of life. 

Victim it is more accurate, because if you’re victimized it means there’s a perpetrator. Victim describes that everything that happened was out of your control, and people feel extremely uncomfortable about that, but it is the reality, and it takes responsibility off of your shoulders. You went thru things beyond your control. It harmed you way beyond you would allow something to harm you. You had no protection against a person who tortured you. This person has shown they’re a monster, and they need to be stopped from hurting you, or anyone else again. That’s what the word “victim” stands for. 

Nobody chooses or has control over weather they’re victimized, and when it does happen, only humane thing to do is to stand with the victim and fight against the monster. And surviving monsters should never be painted as a challenge. Nobody should even have to face one. They should be gone from the environment. They don’t serve any purpose. They’re not a part of human life. They’re predators who have no business calling themselves humans. They should be banished and eliminated. We shouldn’t have to survive this. 

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you make me want to live every hour of every day.

- to my love.

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“my battery is low and it’s getting dark” is like. honestly the most vulnerable sentence . it’s just repeating in my head . 

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opportunity.

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Something’s wrong with the battery.

There’s less light now than normally anyway, because it’s that time of year. But even when it’s daytime, I don’t feel the warmth as much anymore. It doesn’t refresh me like it used to. Maybe I’m just getting old.

I keep going, because what else is there left to do? I collect data, take photographs of this beautiful landscape around me, tell my family everything. I hope one day they get to see all this. But somehow I don’t think I’ll ever see them again. They did warn me about that, but it’s still sad. I hope they’re proud of me, out here.

It’s night now, and the stars are looking so amazing tonight. I move so I’m in just the right position, so that the ground is level and everything I can see above it is stars. I take the picture, and immediately send it home. They’ll love that one. It’s so pretty, it’s everything they sent me out here for. At least I did a good job.

It’s daytime again now, and I’m still tired. So tired. I check the counter - well over 5000 sols. I’m old. And I’m tired.

There’s something wrong with the battery, and I don’t know how to fix it. I can see the sun, but it’s not warming me, not energising me in the same way it used to. Oh well. There’s a time for everyone.

I reach back to ping one last lot of data home. I tell them everything I can. There’s a storm on the horizon, moving in fast. I know this place, I know what that means. It’s getting dark again, and I know my battery won’t last this lot of darkness. So I send them my last message.

I tell them my battery is low, and it’s getting dark. They’ll know what that means.

I sit and wait, hoping to hear back, hoping for just one last message from home, from my family. But I know it won’t get here in time - the storm is getting closer, and everyone is so far away.

It’s time.

The storm hits and my battery finally blinks out. I know they will still message me, still try to get through, hope I could still come back to them, months down the line, but one day they’ll have to accept that I’m gone. One day they will finally mourn me.

I hope they’re not too sad. I hope they don’t forget me. I hope they keep trying.

Maybe I will never see them again. But I hope one day they will see me again.

Goodbye, everyone. Goodnight.

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my life

dear tumblr friends:

I’ve been suffering from depression and anxiety for six years now. I am 18 years old, and I am a senior in high school. It started when I was in 6th grade. I was shocked to realize the harsh reality of middle school bullying and drama and bullshit-ery. In 8th grade when I came out as bisexual, I received lots of hate from my classmates. My guidance counselor called my parents and told them I was getting bullied and they asked me why. It literally took me 3 hours to even get the words out of my mouth. “I’m gay”. They were so relieved, they thought I was pregnant! My parents love me for who I am and have no prejudice or hate towards my sexuality, they celebrate it. I know others are not as fortunate to have parents that support them and I truly feel so sorry for them. Like I’m 18 now I’ll just adopt you and love you.

Anyways

Once they found out I was gay they started better understanding why I was hurting so badly. They put me into counseling and it was alright, but I felt that therapy wasn’t helping because I kept having relapses. I just wanted to make all of the depression and anxiety disappear. Unfortunately, though, it is not that easy. I had been seeing a counselor throughout my freshman and sophomore years in high school. 

My freshman year I had my algebra I class with this guy named Tariq. Tariq was an interesting character. He used humor a lot to handle bad things, and I do the same thing. We started dating sophomore year. I will admit, I did have a lot of good times with Tariq. He was my best friend. But throughout this relationship he was slowly poisoning me with his toxicity. I just didn’t see it until we broke up.

We had sex for the first time about 2 months into the relationship. He was my first and I was his. Once that happened, though, things started to get out of hand. I could not be around Tariq and have him not touch me. He always wanted to have sex, receive blowjobs, etc. (Also sorry if you’re confused I use gay and bisexual just gay because they are both queer!) But he would always ask me for it. Like, I get it you’re a horny teenager but you shouldn't continue having sex after your girlfriend says to stop. This happened more times than I can count. He would apologize for going too far, but it still kept happening. 

Tariq also was a manipulative piece of shit. He would make me feel bad about the stupidest things. The way I dressed, did my makeup, decorated my notebooks, talking to male friends. etc. During our relationship we broke up for about a month. (He was treating me like shit so I was done). During that time I was talking to his friend Michael (name changed for privacy), and we exchanged nudes. Tariq and I got back together and I hadn't told him about Michael. When he found out, though, he was heartbroken. I completely understood, I went to someone else when we were having problems. But we still were not dating when all of that happened.

 He held this over my head for months. He didn't trust me. He controlled my every move. I was strictly his and only his and no one else could interact with me. At night, we often facetimed before going to sleep. This was his time for giving me lectures about what I was doing wrong in my life. He didn't miss an opportunity to tell me I wasn't handling my parents’ divorce well and I need to leave my comfort zones. Now I, a very mentally ill self-loathing teenager, can’t just do that very easily. He just made me feel sad all the time. Finally I was fed up with all of this so I tried to break up with him, but he threatened to kill himself if I did. I stayed in the relationship and heard him out, but that only lasted about a month.

Tariq started suspecting that I was developing feelings for my best friend Angii, which was true, I was. She theoretically put a mirror in my face and told me to look back on my relationship. All the times he’s lied, cheated, made me cry. I became strong enough to make the decision to end it. It was probably the best decision I have made in my life. He still tried to be my friend after the relationship, but I was too hurt to even see his face. Along the line I started talking to him and we got back together for four days. We had sex at my house and then he told me that his condom slipped off. (he has a chode). He made me scavenge my house to find enough money for plan b, and he went to buy it and came back. Our summer fling ended shortly after this. 

Fast forward to my junior year of high school. Angii and I started dating in October and stopped mid-February. I took it very, very hard. She was my best friend and my soul mate, but she just didn't feel the same way romantically anymore. I tried to kill myself and that landed me into an inpatient program at PPI. I stayed for about a week, started new meds, and did partial day hospital for a few weeks afterwards. When I came back to school, my friend Reese (name changed for privacy) told me that Tariq had showed her a video of us having sex, without my consent or knowledge. I was horrified, I knew it was illegal for minors to appear in porn so I thought I was going to get in trouble if I told anybody. I thought about what to do throughout the day, still having to see his ugly face in my math class. At the end of the day I decided that it is more important for him to get in trouble for this than it is for me. I told my guidance counselor what Reese told me, and so she called the assistant principal and student resource officer (both male) into her room so I could tell them what happened too. About half an our later, school had already ended, and a detective came in to talk to me. We called my mom together and he told her what happened. She was very concerned and asked if she could come in and talk, but the detective said it wasn't necessary because I had already told him what happened. That night I remember having work and my mom kept asking me if I was okay, and told me that I was going to get charged because this video is out there. Weeks go by and I’ve talked to detectives, police officers, and victim witness about what happened. My mom filed for a PFA against him to protect me and we got approved for that, so he cannot contact me in any way for the next 3 years. This also then became a criminal case against Tariq. We went back and forth to court with Tariq and his parents, and it was agonizingly painful to have to go through. He was eventually sentence to a year of probation. It was just a small slap on the wrist because they didn't want to ruin his life. What about my life? It’s already been ruined. 

The summer after junior year I started dating this girl named Cayden. She was nice and I really enjoyed our relationship, but towards the end things just got so overused and overworked because we were both depressed and suicidal and projected it on each other. We broke up in August and I went to my second inpatient at Philhaven. I stayed there for two weeks and did partial day hospital for a few weeks after that. It was all just a repeating cycle of relapses in depression and countless panic attacks and self harm and overall an emotional roller coaster. I still don't understand why my brain does that. After inpatient I started getting better, but was struggling with insomnia and nightmares. I had horrifying dreams of Tariq hurting me again and I began having flashbacks in my daily life. At the end of December 2018 I went inpatient for the third time and stayed at PPI again. I was diagnosed with PTSD and I now see a trauma therapist (which is going great btw!). It’s now March 3rd and I feel like I’m genuinely doing well. I’m caught up in school and on track to graduate, I find things to smile about, I had a job interview today and got the job, so things are looking up. I still have these terrible flashbacks and nightmares, my hands tremble so badly, and I still have suicide and self harm thoughts, but I’m getting better at managing it. I have friends that love me, a color guard team that I compete with, and Youth and Government affairs, so I’m fairly happy. I’m just waiting for it to get a little better so I can be happy happy. Until then, I use my coping skills and strive to be the best I can be, so even though life kicked me in the ass I have been able to rise above.

This was very ranty and I have never been able to better explain what happened to me than in this post, so I hope it makes sense. There’s some details that I didn’t mention but they weren’t significant enough to talk about. I just want people to know that they are not alone, and things WILL get better. I never have been able to believe that until now. Be the best you you can be. To be or not to be. 

I am Shakespeare and thank you for coming to my ted talk.

- val

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Adolfo Belimbau (1845-1938) “The butterfly girl” Oil on canvas

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