My body still doesn't know its over

 

As far as I have come, there are still things that pull me back. Back to the place that I still fight so hard to recover from.  The nightmares, flashbacks, triggers, and bruises at night are still there for a good deal of the time.  I can go for some time without them, and then out of nowhere, they come back with a vengeance with no rhyme or reason. So much of me is still fighting all that happened to me. I am in such a different place in my mind.  I have learned to take things as they come and keep moving forward.  There are still days that the memories kick the shit out of me, and I become one very messy, complicated human. The morning's that I can't even brush my teeth, and the anger that I feel for myself is intense.  The mornings that a shower feels more like a memory chamber than anything peaceful and calming. The days when I lay down to sleep, and I still see the fan, and without warning, I repeat their names as I did all those years ago. The things that have happened to me live in every cell of my body. I have come so far, and I have so far to go. 

There are just things that I don't understand, and I am not sure that I ever will.  How the mind works, how trauma is processed and remembered. The insignificant things that stick out, and the big things that are not even a clear thought.  I can remember a therapist telling me once that the nightmares and flashbacks were a choice. I took that to mean that it was something that I was purposefully doing, and I think that I have held on to a part of that. It's me, I am the problem, I am keeping these thoughts and memories alive. It's not like that; there's a part of me that cannot let go of the most haunting things. There are pieces of me that are just trying to make sense of the things that hurt so much. Somehow, someway, I should be able to stop those things in my sleep, stop those intrusive thoughts, and just move past them, but if it were a conscious choice, I would have stopped them a long time ago.   

There are things that live in my skin, even on my skin. Sometimes even a kind touch can wake the memories, and instead of something loving and kind, it turns dark and heavy.  Some words, songs, even tone of voice, and my heart skips a beat, I am thrown back to a time that was more than dangerous. Sometimes I hear a song, or remember the beat, and I freeze even after all this time. And it's more than hard to understand, because those things just happen, literally in my skin, there is a reaction sometimes before I even have words for it. Last week, I wrote about breathing and how hard that is. When certain things happen, there is no response; it's a level that happens before I am even fully aware of it.  There are times, even after a counseling session, I can't catch my breath because literally sometimes the things that are spoken take my breath away. Sometimes the thoughts and reactions that I have become so automatic that even though I am aware today of so much, and have worked so hard on healing, there are things on a different level where there are no words that I am working so hard to unravel, unpack and truly understand.  The nature of trauma is such a beast in every sense of the word. 

I heart your heart.