I let it finally happen. I feel it break through my chest and roll down my face. I turn and turn and keep waking up, unable to stop it enveloping me.
The flashbacks come and go. Often I am not able to cry but when I can I let it happen and this type of grief is overwhelming.
Grief is so weird to me: I have been strong, been fighting since literally before I was born to survive, to keep going, to not let anything stop me.
Yet this feels so different than anything I have felt before, and it does stop me. It cuts so deep when it comes. I want to escape it and drown it in distraction completely and at the same time, give it all the comfort and love in the world that I can, because I know I need that.
I feel so lost in how to process it all. My therapist says I have a lifetime of trauma in my body, and it is so true: but it has continued to hit me hard with no breaks for years until now, in 2025: 28 years later, and I finally stop, I finally can feel a tiny bit of the tip of the wreckage that has been built up and carved itself into every single part of me: every vein, every inch of skin, every line of age, every beat of my heart, every scar left on me.
I have my armor and my armor is my defense. My armour is dissociation, continuing on, trying not to feel because if I feel, it is too much. I have tried to start letting myself feel in tiny bits, but still, it overwhelms me with an ache that feels both heavy and traumatizing - because the memories come back, and I have to feel it to let it release a little more each time.
Will I ever be okay? I have severe PTSD from everything: no one can understand the depths of it and I know one only can if they have been through anything I have. I know God can do anything, but I also know I am scarred for the rest of my life that I am here on earth alive. I am trying to trust him again, but it still feels like knives in my chest and all over my body.
I am not sure how or when or why. All I know is, keep taking it one moment and one day at a time: keep trying to let myself rest, feel, and do anything that brings me comfort, peace, and joy in the midst of it.
I always send love to others, but today, I am sending it to myself.
I love you B, and it is okay to rest, to cry, and to do and be whatever you want to be now. You are free Baby.
- RKD
02-18-25