"You tell me it gets better, it gets better in time. You say I'll pull myself together. Pull it together you'll be fine. Tell me what the hell do you know, what do you know; Tell me how the hell could you know, what could you know; 'Til it happens to you, you don't know. 'Til it happens to you, you don't know how it feels, you don't know how it feels." [-Lady Gaga]
#Late Post... Part one of two...
[4/7/2018]
I speak a lot about PTSD and depression and topics that people often avoid. Within this blog, I use my own experiences as a canvass of exploration for these topics . One of my first blog posts tackled the story of Arizona; A story that up until about a year and a half ago I never spoke of publicly or otherwise. It was a defining moment in my life- it changed me. It changed me in ways that I have still yet to fully come to terms with. It is a story that I still do not speak much of- But it is a story that nonetheless plays inside of me 24/7 like a broken record- always inside of me- that is the very essence of PTSD.
In general I find that people do not understand PTSD. I often see people interpret it is as one succumbing to a victim mentality. And in this sort of ernestly trying to be helpful kind of way, solutions are handed out like candy on Halloween- be positive, go serve others, stop living in the past, at least you-... etc., etc., etc ...
As I have been dealing with a little (or A LOT) of PTSD centered around Arizona, I decided to chronicle a snapshot of what it looks like for me- So, this is a snapshot of my PTSD brain...
[Note: If you have not read my initial Arizona post, you may wish to revisit it. It is the 8/15/2017 post.]
[4/20/18- 1:43a]
It's getting harder to breathe...
Dear Game of Thrones, #arizonaiscoming - I think that trumps your little winter issue.
May 10th, 2011, 13 hours, across 2 states....6 years. 10 months. And 20 days. And counting.
It will wake you from a dead sleep, creep up on you while you're entering data into your routine, mundane spreadsheets at work, steal your breath in the middle of dinner with your family until you have trouble following the normal flow of conversation- And all the while, you will tell yourself that you are not going crazy. And just the same, you will desperately grasp at straws of sanity while sucking down oxygen because there will never seem to be enough air in your lungs.
#Arizonaiscoming
....
[4/27/18- 3:47a]
I didn't want to sleep anyway...
He's still out there in the dark. Still alive, still breathing- I can feel it in my bones. The reckoning is near. His voice is getting louder in my ears, "Don't forget, you're mine now. I own you." There is a scar you know on my skin in plain sight where he pressed a blade just enough to make his point. And his point was made. For the last nearly seven years of my life, I have waited for him to come for me. I have waited for this to be over. I have waited for his game to end. I have waited for the come what may- the end scene, fade to black, six feet under, pushing up daisies, Dateline special. I have waited. And I am still waiting. Because he is coming for me, if even only in my dreams, the reckoning is near. It was the final play in his game, this.
#Arizonaiscoming.
It's getting harder to breathe...
.....
[4/29/18- 2:54a]]
I need to understand my thoughts but this is a rabbit trail and I am Alice chasing after smoke and mirrors and a white rabbit that will always outrun me at every turn as I tumble in that infinite landscape of rabbit holes...
PTSD Brain=Rabbit Holes:
He didn't have to take my life, to take my life.
Am I a real, live girl?? Because I still feel it, the steel in the cut on my skin.
And his low, gravel coated laughter, I still hear his voice laughing as he pressed the blade in. And it's getting louder in my head.
Cat and mouse; I was easy prey. How did he know?? How did he know that he could do those things to me and that I wouldn't even try to stop him- how, how did he know??
"It had to be you. with that pretty Marilyn smile, it had to be you"- that was what he said. And I still feel sick when I think about it.
And how many showers have I taken since that night? More than 3,000, that much I know- but it's never enough. How many more will it take to wash you off of me David?? How many more until those 13 hours run down the drain, clean and free, never to stain my skin again??? I scrub at my skin until it's as red and raw and angry as I feel- But it's never enough...How will anyone ever touch me again if I can't wash him off?????????
No one will ever love me. Not like this. Not like this. NOT LIKE THIS.
I thought if I went back to Arizona that I could somehow bury his ghost in that godforsaken sand but the red earth keeps bleeding out from underneath my nails as I try to keep him down- it's never enough fight to keep it wholly contained. I AM SO FUCKING TIRED. He should have killed me. He should have killed me. Why didn't he kill me. Why????
I can still smell the nicotine on his breath and the gasoline on his clothes. It burns inside my nose and I taste it in my mouth. And I still wake up with vomit on myself from a memory that I cannot silence.
I am burning alive- Isn't that my penance after all for all these years of silence? I have blood on my hands, the blood of all of the women that I did not save because of my silence.
And I can't take it back, the way I sealed my mouth shut like a mausoleum. I. Cant. Take. It. Back. I'm so sorry. No one will ever know what that moment cost me. And I'm so sorry. My god, I am so sorry. I AM SO SORRY.
He didn't have to take my life, to take my life. Because sometimes I think that I merely a dead girl walking. Because he's out there in the darkness and he knows exactly who I am. And he has a map of his own making anytime he wants to make the trip. And I'm still here. And he's still there, in the shadows, some kind of ghost haunting me.
He didn't have to take my life, to take my life. Sometimes, all I feel like is a dead girl walking...
#Arizonaiscoming
....
[5/9/18]
I am still here. I am still here. I AM STILL HERE. It runs on a loop inside my veins, this broken anthem inside of this half-resuscitated girl- I am still here.
Nearly two years ago, I returned to Arizona in the dead of winter with ice in my veins and frost on the ground, hoping that if I forced myself into a reconciliation of those 13 hours that I could leave David behind, buried deep into the red clay earth, never to rise again. But it did not work like that. It just wasn't that simple. Looking back now, I took myself apart in stages and dissected every part of the story that I had swallowed down- all of the little details that were carved into the core of my being, always there underneath the surface- I took myself apart and went back to Arizona thinking that I could somehow glue the broken pieces back together again; But in the end standing on the edge of the 7 year anniversary of those 13 hours what I know now is that I went back to Arizona only to discover that I could not go back to Arizona, not that Arizona. So where do I go from here? What part of Arizona am I surviving? What part of those 13 hours am I taking back? What part of this story will find me brave? Who am I now? Victim? Survivor? Both? Does it even matter?
I don't know.
But I'm willing to find out.
Because this year and next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and even still, the year after that- as long as I am breathing, it will be the active silent terrorist cell inside of my DNA, always waiting for it's moment to strike- that is PTSD.
I think for now it is enough to know that I am willing to find out who I am in light of this.
And maybe for me it starts tomorrow. 7 years to the day. #arizonaiscoming.
Indeed, it is.
Jillian Nichole, uncertain...
