#about losing yourself to trauma

[voljenimedved]

I dont remember turning into the person I am right now. I opened my Spotify profile and marvelled at how little new music I had discovered over the past months (months?

no, not just months, its been almost a full year now, how could it have been that long already?), wasnt listening to new music my thing, a thing I made a point out of keeping precise track of, so where did that me go- riddled with headaches, riddled with mental battles and new intestinal issues, with my knees worsening and my hands constantly pulsating with pain- my entire body is decaying, and I dont remember how that happened.

I remember a few events, a very few, they make me shake and feel physically ill, but nothing in between. I wonder at how my mind has tried to keep me safe and only retained vague shapes. For eight months, I had lived in a limbo of hurt and fear and illness and I had no idea. One day, I chose to confront one of the demons, the one I had almost thrown up for in response to any thought of it, and I didnt die. I lived I was shaken, but I carried on- I woke up- I woke up from my eight months coma and realized where I am and who I am and actually there was nothing left of me

and I had to start over. There was nothing left of me, the last demon being the biggest to bring me down, the last coffin in the nail at the end of a two year long trial, and now I had to reinvent myself. I couldnt stand my new favorites now and I hated my clothes and I despised my favorite songs and I resented Berlin and I couldnt think of my surrounding town and I cursed my programs and I grew to dislike alcohol even more and I was unable to play games I had enjoyed and I shudder at musicals I liked and I detest my memory, the cursed knowledge that I had to live with, knowing I was

stained and ugly and disgusting now

and others were able to carry on and live their lives as if nothing happened, some even laughing at me, gossiping, where was that fair, I had nothing anymore, I lost my personality, my friends, my partner, my memories

and I grieved, I grieved for the opportunities lost, for the relationships lost, and for myself. For something supposedly natural, changing feels more unnatural than anything else- I didnt want to change. I long for times where my brain wasnt rotting away from stress; where my everyday wasnt ruined by delusional anxiety; where I hadnt been touched and stained; where I hadnt spent money, where I hadnt sent that message, where I hadnt rekindled that old flame where I hadnt made myself vulnerable where I didnt question it where I didnt rely on you where I didnt touch you where I didnt say yes to you where I didnt hang out the entire night with you where I hadnt cried to my mother at night admitting it to her where I hadnt known a virus was on its way to change everything where I hadnt known I was riddled with phobias where I didnt

know

But I know. I know, I have experienced all of it, and now have to live with all of it. And so I have spent the past few months rebuilding myself.

Day by day, bit by bit,

I am reimagining myself. Proving to people how I am able to survive without most of them knowing. Every single day is a battle and- when I cry this much about ordinary days, I remember days from the past two years, they flash by me- scenes in which I would spend hours straight in my bed, sobbing, every single day for several weeks, unable to sleep at night- when I would scream in anguish over being left alone and my parents would hurry into my room- when I almost puked from anxiety every single day and called the police out of fear and sobbed into my mothers chest- the summer where I found out she cheated on my father and fell to the floor, heaving, hyperventilating, because I was convinced she didnt love me anymore-

all that inevitably led to me dying, and now I am different.

How far can I push myself while still being me and not lying to others?

Im not ready to live my life. I am unable to stand or walk for long, unable to go a day without genuinely believing I am dying, unable to take care of myself, unable to express myself, unable to live healthily- how do others do it? At only 18 years old, am I really this abnormally affected, or am I just

the abnormally sad odd one out?

I still miss all of them. I hope, one day, I wont. I hope, one day, I wont long again for the words and touch of people that stuck knives into me, poked at me, prodded my brain until I was nothing but a wet, shaking little clump of blood, flesh, bones and cells, thrown into the world like a newborn at 18. I hope I will find myself and outgrow all of them.