Childhood trauma

We talk about the aftermath of childhood trauma and we say things like someone “carries a lot of baggage.” The reality is that sometimes rather than “carrying baggage,” it’s like a person is being chased by demons. Demons that stalk you, lurking just outside the door, standing in the shadows watching, waiting, and ready to jump out when you least expect it. They threaten to come in the night and attack while you sleep, leaving you constantly afraid. They threaten to steal your peace of mind and your sanity, and then they whisper in your ear and tell you that it’s your fault because you’re unworthy and unlovable. They rage and shriek, telling you that you’re irreparably broken, that you’ll never be okay, and that nobody will ever really love you. Then the demons assure you that you are powerless and that they will NEVER leave.

Sometimes a person spends their life standing against the door, holding it shut so the terror that is clawing at the other side can’t get in. And eventually they find that if they want any sort of life at all, they’re going to have to armor up, open the door, and literally go to war with demons.

If only it were baggage.

Whitewashing the Tomb

It’s funny how memories and feelings start to slip away from disuse—at times a welcome loss… the absence of feeling allows for the disillusion that the soul is still intact. That it’s not actually rent and splayed… ragged from the shrapnel of leftover dreams and love that wasn’t quite enough. Forgetting is the whitewashing of the tomb. It allows one to move through life as if unscathed and anguish free. To walk among the daisies and pretend they aren’t being pushed up by the memories of love and loss buried beneath. But memories don’t take kindly to being strangled and put into graves. In rare and unsuspecting moments they resurrect themselves (were they ever really dead, or just lingering in the shadows of tombstones biding the time?). They pour in like a flood, overwhelming… threatening to drown an already fragile soul in their deluge. They leave me gasping for breath, clutching at my soul, trying to close the gaping wound found there. As if hands could mend what love could not.

One hand grips my soul in an illusion of defiance and strength. The other picks up a paintbrush and begins on the tomb.

Surviving.

The last few years have been madness. A raging storm coming from nowhere that moves in with a vengeance, hell-bent on destruction and wounding everything in its path. And then another storm. And another. Wind and rain, darkness and fury, a wild grasping in all directions for anything solid to cling to–anything impervious to the onslaught. Even when the raging subsides, relief does not come, as the floods have risen. There is now a different desperation as the waters surge forth and solid ground is lost. Choking and flailing, fatigued and going under… this is the one that is unendurable. This will be the storm that overcomes–there will be no surviving this. The certainty of annihilation sinks in, but alas, the storm isn’t that kind. It dissipates, taking its outrage elsewhere, leaving behind the knowledge that to survive is actually less desirable than to not. It is to wake up battered and bruised, face down in the midst of debris vomiting out floodwaters. Alone and shaken, a gaping soul fragmented and bleeding, yet charged with the unimaginable task of picking up the pieces. Clearing the debris. Searching for bodies while hoping to find none. Assessing the great loss. All the while clutching the soul in the attempt to keep the remaining pieces intact. Surviving is not to be envied.