PTSD and Trauma recovery

[Dragonfly]

Originally Posted by HeartBreak Kid

In those moments when I am too weak to think, I turn to my books....I try to find inspiration on the pages, I look for my life in between the lines.....
A good friend wrote some great things before I even knew she existed..I cannot explain what it is that I am feeling but she can........

One way women have had of coping is to withdraw - to go into your own space, to be depressed. Instead of attacking and venting anger, you turn it inward, against yourself, so that you get to feeling really depressed: You're not good enough; you fucked up . . . You say all these bad things to yourself. It's like beating, self-abuse. You're beating on yourself with these words and these messages that there's something wrong with you, because you didn't complete this or that task; and look at you, you don't have a relationship; or, look at you, you messed up on your relationship......... it's a constant abuse of self, a violence against the self. Some days, it's easier to take than somebody else abusing you, so what you do is you jump in and abuse yourself, before somebody else can do it.

I had gotten so down on myself, I mixed pills with alcohol. I almost suicided. I came very close to dying. This crisis brought me to the realization that to kill yourself, that's the ultimate mutilation, the ultimate abuse.......
There was an abuser inside of me, who was trying to kill the victim inside of me.
~"On Changing Identity" © 1991, 2006 by Canéla A. Jaramillo~

I just wanted to thank you for this post. Some days, like today, a person really just needs to hear this coming from someone else... somewhere else... just so your soul knows beyond any doubt that you are not alone in the way you feel. To see proof that you aren't the only one who has to struggle not to do this to themselves.

[HeartBreak Kid]

"THIS" is NOT a cry for help. Nor is it a call for support, acceptance, understanding, or sympathy. I am not asking for prayers, thanks, or even acknowledgment.

"THIS" is a person, a girl, a mother, an abuser and an abused woman sitting in the dark in a house with "family" that are as alien to me as I to them.

*I don't know them, they don't know me......we co-exists, each a sovereign planet orbiting around each other. Occasionally through the sheer will of ones gravitational pull.......we collide......and we speak something real....do something real.....then as predictable as the sun rising each morning........we disengage, and become alone..............
............again................

Today -
*I Feel like a star.......a tumultuous ball of gas giving all my warmth and light to everyone who seeks it...................
.......................When was the last time YOU thanked the sun?

My star.....is anxious....paranoid......confused.....but mostly tired......I have been spinning and shining and providing.........I want to rest............
....................So I wait..................

To Super Nova...........to self-destruct...........it takes so long........ I fight to pierce myself....but i cannot....the knife, the razor, the scissors are never sharp enough to bleed out.........
......................I have scars...............

I can feel the change.....The Super Nova is coming......But it tells me it needs my help............I cry out to light...............beg to learn the secret to extinguish it forever..................
...................no answer.........

Well, what is the next step......I need to burn hotter......so I may burn out......

I love harder, I hate harder, I give more, more more more....adding fuel to my fire........I cry tears.....My face is wet................
.......................I feel nothing.............

There has to be a way.....I need more....harder...rougher......dirtier.....hatefill ed....self loathing.....so i may explode.......... a brilliant, blinding blight..........
...........Removed..........

But my light, while smaller and dispersed......will shine, from afar...........
..................forever................

[HeartBreak Kid]

Someone who self-injures is caught in a whirlpool of sorts. The one thing that we depend on is something that is considered bad for us. So we have to build an elaborate web of deceit, much like someone hiding a drug addiction. This hurts us as much as it does you. In fact, it contributes to our downward spiral. We lie, feel guilty for lying, cut ourselves to alleviate the guilt, then it starts over — we have to lie again. Tomorrow will be better, we tell ourselves. Tomorrow I’ll do better; I’ll start over, a clean slate. Only every tomorrow turns to today, and we always ruin today. We spend our lives chasing that tomorrow, that tomorrow that never comes. We cut our skin, trying to carve our imperfect bodies into something pure and beautiful. We hurt ourselves physically to ease the pain that ravages our insides. We hide behind our scars because we don’t know what we are deep inside, and what we do know we are, we hate. Growing up in a world that hates us, we just never learned quite how to live. And it’s as simple as that. No sideshow freaks, no scary psychotic asylum patients… just a bunch of people who are essentially broken in some way, waiting for the day to come when they will find the strength to fix themselves. And that day will come. Eventually they will realize they’ve hit rock bottom. “And that there is, in fact, an incredible freedom in having nothing left to lose.” (Hornbacher, 279).

[Canela]

I'm here. And I'm glad you're all here, too.

Leaving you all many blessings,

Shug

[Andrew, Jr.]

Little Shug,

I am so relieved and happy you are here. You bring comfort to so many of us.

Love,
Andrew

[Canela]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

Little Shug,

I am so relieved and happy you are here. You bring comfort to so many of us.

Love,
Andrew

Awwww, thanks Andrew--as do you!