feral-and-fine

[feral-and-fine]

This is the kind of pain that demands to be felt

It could fight through the strongest anesthesia

It will be felt through any level of numbing, substances, or ignorance just short of killing yourself

The kind of pain that’s so overwhelming that you can’t possibly get through it, except you do.

It’s the pain that 13 year old you couldn’t experience. It’s the pain that made you say “I have all these memories but they feel like they happened to someone else”

They did happen to someone else.

They happened to the version of you that was angry and confused and stubborn

The version of you that didn’t want to hope for the future,

That couldn’t hope for the future

Because it was too painful

Each time someone presented a glimmer of hope, it got ripped away

A wound, barely healed

Getting torn open

Again

And again

And again

Each time, that pink, newly formed scar tissue getting marred

Damaging the nerves

Less likely to heal with every pass

The concept that you could be 23 and start to look at those wounds, having the resources to try and heal them, a indescribable feat of the human body

You look at everyone around you and you want them to be proud of you

Because suffering through this alone is un-fucking-imaginable

The beauty that emanates from that healing wants to be shared

It wants to be witnessed

It wants to be loved and appreciated

The version of you that told the psychiatrist “if you send me home with my mother, I’m going to kill myself and I’m not going to call for help”

The version of you that really fucking meant it

The version of you that wanted someone to hear the desperation in those cries and rescue you

Because you were a kid

Because you still needed to be taken care of

Because you couldn’t support your own needs

Because you were a kid

And now here we are, a ripe 10 years later

Finally feeling the pain of that 13 year old

That 13 year old who is you

The 13 year old who is 23

Who has a grown up job, and a car, and a home, and two cats that she loves, and an amazing therapist, and partners, and family, and loves music, and who wears comfortable clothes, and gets to spend her money on things that she loves

Who never had the chance to catch up with herself until now

The 23 year old who thought she’d just skate into adulthood and only have to deal with the ‘right now’

The 23 year old who is so angry

Who doesn’t want to carry the burdens of someone else’s trauma

Who is so tired of hearing herself talk about 13 year old her

Whose scripts have worn deep tracks into her brain

Who also doesn’t think she can live through the pain

And frankly, doesn’t want to

And yet here we are

Journaling

In her hammock

With the organic, local, CBD blueberry iced tea she got when she went for a walk earlier

The 23 year old who knows that caffeine, adderall, nicotine, and weed don’t mix well together for her

So she has the fortitude to pick 3 at a time instead of 4

Even though each of those things serve a purpose in her malformed, dysfunctional brain

She chooses to give up piecing herself together

She chooses to surrender to the chaos

With absolutely no idea if she’ll make it out alive

She didn’t ask for this

She doesn’t want it

And yet here we are