Life makes no sense anymore.
At the beginning of this week, towards the end of one of my shifts at work, I had a revelation.
Our system has felt a constant undercurrent of fear – fear of not doing enough to stop cp – since we were very, very young.
A large portion of our brain has been constantly dedicated to analyzing this problem. We never stop thinking about it. And that doesn’t mean that our efforts or theories have always been correct. In fact, I would say that entertaining every outcome to every solution has only made us more reckless and less stable.
But on one of our closing shifts at work, it finally hit us.
This is PTSD.
This is literally just PTSD.
I know it looks obvious, but I promise you that we had no idea until this week. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between intuition and a trauma response when the trauma response is survival-based. “This is how we all get out of here alive” says your brain. And it feels exactly like your heart’s desire, because one of your heart’s desires IS getting everybody out. Because you had so many friends in there, and you can’t remember who they are or if they’re okay. And even the friends who abused you, you can hardly hate, because you know what that situation did to YOUR head. The only thing that matters is that everybody can be okay.
I just want everybody who went through that to be able to find a family that truly loves them for who they truly are. To be able to chose what they want out of life, and to be able to feel happy at least some of the time.
And I still want to try. I still think that people who have been abused create art that understands humanity better than anyone. I do not say this to romanticize it – fuck anyone who says that people need to monetize their trauma. Fuck anyone who says that abused children are saints who need to hold up the world. Fuck people who treat loss and hurt and despair like a gift and try to rip it out of other peoples’ minds.
What I’m saying is that – for the entirety of human existance – greedy, disgusting people have seen that trauma sells and have stolen people’s voices. Messages that should have been able to help are twisted into something that keep abused people reviled by society.
Put me on exhibit in a glass cage and rip out my tongue.
So I think the best thing I can do in my life is to tell my story, as unedited (emotionally at least) as possible. And to encourage others that they can do the same. IF THEY SO CHOOSE. Because if anybody wants to drop everything and move on, that is an incredibly valid decision and not bad or wrong in the slightest. Staying alive and finding a way to be happy in this twisted place matters far more than trying to change the world. We do what we can, because to do what SHOULD be done would require the cooperation of every human being on this planet. And that may never happen. And we have less energy at our disposal than most.
Because that feeling that you have to fix everything at once, that it all rests on you, that nobody will help unless you do…is PTSD. And religious trauma, probably.
I am telling myself and my system this, rather than anybody reading. Like I said, we only just realized it this week. Everything that we have ever lived for amounts to running away from a carnivore.
This means that we can slow down.
So we can take the time to create art – to help people and to heal simultaneously. Instead of shredding our own brain and scattering the pieces to the wind.
I’m going to make some tea and just…process.
-I think I’m in Katran’s subsystem, but I’m not sure