anxiety, trauma and the subtle, unsteady, long process of healing.

 

Once again, it crept up on me.

I was unaware of how much it still affects me.

Unaware of how it’ll make me freeze up and be unable to do simple tasks.

But I slowly became aware.

'It started with a faint whisper: you’ll make noise. You’ll annoy everyone around you'.

Then it kept on going. It slowly started to speak normally, with a normal tone.

I could hear it more and more clearly.

'Do not eat. The sound is annoying.'

'Do not drink. The sound is annoying.'

'Be careful of how much you breathe or gulp. If it is too much, it’ll get annoying.'

'Do not move around. That’s annoying.'

 

'Annoying. 

Annoying. 

A N N O Y I N G .'

 

'Stop breathing. It is annoying.

Stop gulping. It is annoying.

Stop moving. It is annoying.

Stop. Existing.

It. Is. Annoying.'

 

ANNOYING ANNOYING ANNOYING ANNOYING ANNOYING ANNOYING ANNOYING

YOU’RE SO SO ANNOYING

YOUR SIMPLE EXISTENCE IS SO ANNOYING.

 

S O

A N N O Y I N G

Y O U

A R E

S T O P

I  T

R I G H T

N O W

STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP

S T O P

E X I S T I N G

DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE

Just simply die.

 

And so, I assumed that I was annoying just because I was there, in that spot, at that time, with my shameful self.

And so, I calculated the ways in which I would breathe, gulp, even move.

I did not eat. I did not drink.

I was half present and half past.

 

I wish I could’ve defrosted, right then and there.

I wish that I could have had the power to break free

From the curse of my own psyche.

From the chains of my painful past.

So many wishes, unfulfilled and withered away.

Still, all I could do is try to win this match, but I sadly lost.

The show was over. The time has come for me to leave.

The remnants of my attempts were put in a box and carefully brought back home.

 

I feel shame. Deep, deep shame, sprinkled with annoyance and even deeper sadness.

Trauma can linger on for so long, for as long as you let it.

I wish I could just simply get past this and move on, yet I am still at the restaurant,

Still at the moments that make me want to pluck my eyes out and tear my ears down

The moments that made me feel like all that I am doing, all that I am, is just simply wrong.

Existing was simply wrong.

 

And in the end, all of this is something I probably needed right now.

It is painful, yes, but at the same time, at least I have become, once again, aware of the existence of this wound. Reminded of its existence and its power over me. The wound that keeps on growing inside of me if I continue feeding it so much.

The wound of one’s sheer existence. The wound of the liability, of the one that was too much even while trying to be as little as it could. The wound made by a parent so mad at the world, all this anger had to be poured over the ones they were supposed to love most.

 

I do wish I was loved more as a child. That I wouldn’t constantly have to question if my parents were even glad to have me in their life or if I just ruined it completely by just simply existing.

I wish that in order to make sense of it all, I could’ve went forward with other mindsets. That I could’ve chosen to not hate myself so much for what was happening around me and to me.

It was not my fault. I wish I could have known this sooner. I wish that someone could have told me in ways in which I could have actually believed them back then.

Yet no one was able to make me believe it, for there were too many things that were pointing straight towards me: 'YOU, YOU ARE AT FAULT. YOUR EXISTENCE DESTROYED ME. I WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN. I WISH I NEVER GAVE BIRTH TO SUCH A THING AS YOU ARE.'

'YOU MONSTER.'

 

I often wonder if I am, indeed, a monster. If I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If all the warmth I give and want to give to the world is actually genuine, or if it is just a mask to hide the ugliness of my heart and mind.

Could I ever become kind enough to make these feelings go away? Could I ever truly change the core of my long-lasting belief, the belief that I am inherently damaged and unfixable?

I am truly working on it. I am putting in so much work, and I do see progress. Lots of it.

Still, there’s this lingering feeling in the back of my mind, feeling that’s patiently waiting for the right time to come out.

 

I hope that one day, I will be able to hold it near and tell it wonderful things. I hope that it will sit, listen, and truly believe all that I am telling it. That its core has been made of spikes and poison, how the more it goes back the more it will hurt. But also, how this very core can be cured, can become not so painful anymore, can become a place which can welcome better things in, things that do not hurt that much anymore.

 

For I am a creature of this universe, a creature that may not be able to exist in the same ways as others, but that doesn’t make me unworthy of things, that doesn’t make me something that should be feared, some scary and dangerous thing. That I shouldn’t bring danger neither on others nor upon myself.

 

That I am me: damaged, flawed, body and soul covered in invisible bruises and unhealed wounds. Yet despite all of this, I can be kind, I can be gentle, I can pick myself up and try, again and again, to be better than what I received, better than the way I was perceived, better than the voices inside my head tell me that I am and I can be.

 

I am capable of change. I am capable of healing. I am capable of growing and blossoming into beautiful trees and flowers.

It might not be today, or tomorrow, or the day after that. It might take weeks, months, years.

Still, I am capable of being more than I was given and more than I am expected to become. My potential shall have no limits.

 

Grow, heal, change.