After.

I want to take some time and reflect on something that I think about often. This is something I can't always vocalize, but I am going to try today. Be patient with me. 

*WARNING: This post has mild-moderate language and contains mention of rape/abuse/etc. Please read with caution*

We all live rollercoaster lives. We have all, at one point or another, gone through something awful. Then slowly we all had to learn how to keep on living after. I have been thrown back to this point over and over during my life. I seem to have constantly woken up only to realize that I had to keep going. Each dip in the rollercoaster delayed my progress in one way or another. I forgot how to breathe, how to smile, how to love. I was suddenly a blank slate and I couldn't remember how to live after.

My rape and molestation occurred at a very young age. As such, I can't provide insight on how I got through it initially. I don't know how I slipped my tights back on and greeted my mother with a smiling face when she picked me up. I don't know how I made it through doctor's appointments and classes with male teachers. I don't know when I remembered how to play, or color, or run, but I would say it was something of a miracle. I remember being very angry when I was young. I was so angry at my step father. Maybe I was scared of him, too. I remember the ugly inside of me before the first time he hit me. I swear I could feel it growing with every outburst. He would tell me just how awful I was and I would believe it. I cried so hard I hiccuped and gasped for air. I think I grew worse, harder, uglier, with every time he would hit me or yell at me. I think I internalized all of his hatred and held it inside of me until I finally broke.  I remember the day my therapist finally coaxed it out of me that I had been raped. I learned that I may never recover years of my memory because that was how my mind dealt with it. My body had become my own savior. My mind had decided it hurt too much. My mind knew I was too scared. So my mind took all of those days and locked them away. It threw darkness over them and it built walls so strong and tall that years of therapy never broke them down. So after the first fall, my body operated on pure instinct. I trudged forward like every other young lady because my body was already to strong that it was able to pretend like nothing was wrong. 

The first time I harmed myself, I remember clearly. I guess we could call this the rise to my second fall. I'm not sure I recall what lead me to it. Maybe I had read about it, maybe I had seen the scars on someone else. I just grabbed a knife from the kitchen and took it to my room. I sat on my bed, lights off, and I stared at the stars. I was so scared that I flipped the knife over to the dull side and dug into my wrist. The deep wound I caused would welt up and now, even 10 years later, those are the scars that remain. Not long after, I was plagued with mental illness. The easiest to diagnose was depression, though later they would change it to manic-depressive disorder. This stretch of 3 years could be its very own rollercoaster, as far as I am concerned. The dance I did with the illnesses, the medicinal side effects, and the therapy was dizzying at best. Each day I had to re-learn something I had forgotten. I remember each and every day I would hit a wall. I would just be consumed with paralyzing fear. I would cry, I would shake, and I would forget how to breathe or think clearly. I remember fighting with myself just to stand up, take a step, and get dressed. It was a constant struggle to remember how to live. One day it was "but how do I live after I relapsed again?" The next it was "but how do I live after hours of flashbacks and nightmares?" Every single day was full of re-learning. It was the most exhausting time of my life. 

It crested and it fell the night I laid awake in the E.R. with a stomach full of charcoal and a heart filled with fear. I believe, fully, without a doubt, that I am only here today because of some twist of fate. The poison control lady told me I waited too long and would have irreparable damage. The doctors made a point to tell me almost the same thing. I probably damaged myself permanently and it's surprising that I lived. I don't like to remember that night. I can still tell you how I felt when I swallowed the pills. I can tell you all about the black hole that swallowed me up. I can tell you how even in my time of despair I took the time to count the pills and swallow them in pairs until I was being eaten alive by 72. I can tell you the exact moment that the fear smacked me in the face. The moment when I looked at the bottle, looked at the clock, and panicked. I called the only person in the World that I thought would help me and would not judge me. From across the country he called poison control and he called my stepmom and he helped save my life. I remember how angry he was, how angry she was, how angry everyone was at me. And in that moment I remember that all of their anger just felt an awful lot like love. As we sped through town, running red lights, I cried and I shook. I couldn't believe how scared I was to die. I couldn't believe how sure I was that I was, in fact, going to die. I remember thinking that I would be laying in a cold E.R. when I died. I can tell you in great detail all of the emotions and thoughts that I went through that day. What I can't tell you is why nothing happened. I have no damage to my liver or kidneys. I have no holes in the lining of my stomach. My heart functions fine and I have had multiple MRIs and CAT scans that verify it. For some reason that I am still not sure of, I came out of that night unscathed. 

In my immediate stint in the psychiatric ward, I took baby steps. I had to remember how to speak to people. I had to learn to swallow the pills. I had to learn to roll over and get out of bed each day. I literally felt like I was all the way back to square one. I am not sure if those days in the hospital made anything better. I drew a sense of security from that place. I felt like I was around people who understood what it was like. I was so happy knowing people were watching me, taking care of me, and I wasn't ready to go when they released me. I was scared of living again. I didn't think I could do it without the hospital. I struggled and I fell so many times after this. I failed at so many things. You guys, I honestly didn't know if I was going to make it out of the place I was back then. Then one day it changed. One day instead of feeling ashamed, I felt angry. Instead of feeling helpless I felt determined. Instead of feeling like going through the motions, I felt like I wanted to fight. I don't remember this day but this was the day that sparked my fire. Something inside me had finally grown. Something beautiful inside me decided that it was better to take the hard road. As huge as this was, it was another time when I had to re-learn everything I knew. I weaned off of my medication slowly. I replaced all of those chemicals with love and strength that I had somehow managed to scrounge up. I did stupid things just to get out of the house. I let the beauty of the World heal me. I let the wide openness of the road soothe me. I let the sunshine chase away the darkness and it was so scary. Every step of recovery frightened me to death. I didn't know who I was without my illnesses anymore, so I had to learn. 

It might sound crazy but I spent an entire Summer figuring myself out. I took a poetry course online, I laid out in the sun, I got my first tattoo, and I spent time meeting myself. I took naps that Summer. I took a lot of photos of myself. I wrote a lot of poetry and I tried a lot of things that scared me. By the time Summer ended, I started to like myself an awful lot. I started to see that underneath all of the ugliness that I had been harboring, maybe there was someone worth being. I believe that I have been given a mind, heart, soul, and body that are unremarkable. Even when I had no idea how to move on, how to progress, how to stay afloat, they remembered. Something inside of me has been made so strong by nature that it has had the force to pull me out of the deepest whole, the darkest pits, and carried me in my weakest moments. I wish I could pinpoint this part of me. I wish I could write it down on paper and share it with people who need it. I wish I had a secret to share with everyone who is hurting but I don't. 

Every single day I am trying to remember how to live after. When I get sad and I let myself cry, I remember that this is sadness after soul swallowing depression. When I cut my apple into slices before I eat it, I remember that this is being picky after life halting OCD. When I grip the steering wheel and take a deep breath, I remember this is anxiousness after a debilitating social anxiety. I will never feel like I am normal because I have been on the other side. I go through the day exactly the way I do because this is my life after. I live each day in the shadow of the life I used to live. It's humbling. It's grounding. It's worth every single struggle.