“i Am Slowly Forgetting Your Smell, The Sound Of Your Steps, And The Hand Motions You Make While Talking

Abusive parents make sure their children always act like everything’s okay. That’s one of the first things you learn there: don’t let the neighbours hear you scream, don’t cry in public, don’t show your marks from being beaten to anyone, don’t talk about things that go on at home, show that you’re okay, don’t be a weakling, don’t let people get the ‘wrong’ idea. You learn that 'acting’ okay and making sure nothing is suspicious about your appearance comes way before your needs or your well being; keeping the family’s secrets is imposed on you before you even know what’s being asked of you.

There’s almost unspoken rule to not ask for help; in fact if you do, you’ll be punished, so asking for help will feel as the same thing as asking for pain and humiliation, something highly inadvisable to do. So on top like feeling that most of the abuse is your fault just because you never said anything or showed symptoms, you learn not to ask for help, ever. The mere thought is humiliating and like you’re making yourself weak and a target for bullying, even when it would be okay, even preferable for anyone else to ask for help in the same situation.

It’s not your fault if you can’t ask for help. If pretense of normalcy was ingrained into your mind since you were a kid, that’s not something you can fight. Trauma conditioning is powerful and it created a real barrier between you and anyone who could possibly help, just to keep you abused in secrecy, to make sure you’re keeping it secret, isolated and alone in it. This is not something you could have done to yourself, or chosen, it’s inflicted, and none of your responsibility.

Neglect is abuse. It has the same effect on you. Being last on the priority list of people “have other things to worry about” is not how you grow up into an emotionally healthy person. You will accept being ignored and neglected because it’s whats expected of you. You will be grateful for crumbs of attention and seek for no more, no matter what. You will grow up dealing with every problem alone and learning to not reach out, not ask for help, not take away a second of someone’s precious time for your problems that surely couldn’t matter.

You learn to be quiet and invisible and to not show signs of pain. You learn to blame yourself for not speaking out, for suffering alone, as if you’re doing it on purpose. You learn to cope with being insignificant, because when you’re neglected, that’s a given. Surely, if you were of any importance, someone would care enough to notice, to talk to you, to see if anything’s wrong. To see if you’re drowning in depression and dissociating from the amount of pain you’re in. Surely, what you’re going thru would matter to someone.  

People who don’t care to give you attention are not people who love you and care for you. They don’t raise you, they don’t even learn who you are. And it’s only a matter of time before you fall into resignation and learn that being ignored and sent to the gates of hell to deal with demons all by yourself, is how your life will be. And the more dangerous part – if someone gives you predatory attention, if someone finds something they can use within you, something they can tear away for their own purposes – it will feel welcome, it will make you feel like finally, you’re good for something. Finally, someone is looking at you. You’ll welcome people who use and hurt you, because even that is better than to be completely and utterly abandoned and ignored by the world. Neglect will make you welcome abusers in your life, not only without caution, but with gratitude that even for a moment, you’re not feeling neglected anymore.

My depression, eating disorder, and addiction fighting over who gets to trigger me first:

“You know, I finally got over you. I spilt all my emotions into notebooks and cried through a pen and was left with pages of poems filled with you. It took me years and a strength I never knew I had. You changed me, there is no doubting that, I never returned to the girl I once was. The naïve sixteen-year-old who thought that love would never hurt her. I was angry at you for a while, and then I wasn’t, and then all I did was cry and then I just longed to be held by you at 3am when my tear soaked pillow reminded me of everything we’d lost. Then i was over you. I really was, I could drink black coffee again, I could go out with my friends again and I could listen to all the songs that reminded me of you with out crying. Then I came home for Christmas to visit my parents in the small town we met. The fairy lights and the Christmas tree and the decorations in everyone’s windows changed something and then I saw you. You hadn’t changed, and the soft twinkling lights against your face made me forget that I was over you and I guess I fell again. I hate that you have the power to do this to me, I hate that you can make me feel like a giddy sixteen-year-old again. I left her behind a long time ago, ran away from her. Moved to the biggest city and got the hardest job I could find. Cut my waist length hair and abandoned my favourite candy floss coloured hair clips. Just so I could leave behind the girl who had no other aspirations than to marry you and have kids and a dog and a cute house with a fence and daffodils in the garden the one we always use to talk about. I ran away and left behind the girl who didn’t need anything more than you. You saw me and you smiled. That little smirk that haunts my dreams but makes them worth remembering. You didn’t ask about my job and you didn’t tell me how proud you were of my promotion; you weren’t impressed by the small town girl living in a big city with an expensive apartment and designer shoes. All you said was “you cut your hair? I like it” After all those years and tears and poems and waking up next to strange men with blue eyes and brown hair, all you could say was “I like your hair”? I’ve never fallen harder or faster or deeper in love. We stood on the same pavement we stood when you gave me a plastic ring all those years ago when we were sixteen and we started laughing like we were sixteen again, and you looked at me like you use to before everything got complicated and heavy and hard. We aren’t sixteen anymore and things are even more complicated now and I don’t love you as much as I did. I love you more, because the truth is I never stopped, I didn’t get over you I just buried you and replaced you with the little things I could fall in love with like hot cocoa in the winter and walks through the park on my days off. I guess when I came back to this small town the girl I ran away from all those years ago found me again and now all I can think about is candy floss coloured hair clips and what we might name our kids, whether they’ll have my eyes and your nose or my long legs and your smile. I don’t know but I know I was made to love you and every time I look into your blue eyes I’m certain that I’ll love you as long as I’m alive.”

—

L.S.

This is my first long one so let me know if you like/don’t like it

I would like to get to know you. I would like to talk to you every day. I would like to know about your interests and hobbies. I would like to know everything about you. I would like to know you. I would like to be friends with you. I would like to be with you.

I would like // 12:26am (via heavenlythoughts)

When I was training to be a battered women’s advocate, my supervisor said something that really blew my mind:

“You can always assume one thing about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if they’re having a day where their best just isn’t that great, or their best doesn’t look like your best, you have to be okay with that.”

Any now whenever anyone in my life, either a friend or a client, frustrates me, disappoints me, or pisses me off, I just tell myself They are doing their best. Their best isn’t that great today, but I have days where my best isn’t that great either. 

What a PTSD-Induced Panic Attack is Like (based on experience of Yours Truely, so it may not be the same for all)

That’s right comrades, y'all read that unnecessarily-long title correctly. We are gonna discuss PTSD and Panic Attacks. No, not ALL of the symptoms appear every time.

Most Common Symptoms of Attacks

Hyperventilating

Shaking

Accelerated pulse

Feeling like reality is disappearing/feeling helpless

A gah-jillion thoughts that you can’t get straight

Overwhelming fear, mainly of injury or dying

Hot flashes

Not blinking

Lightheadedness

Claustrophobia

Sometimes-Symptoms in Cases of Major Attacks

Muscle weakness/legs giving out

Fever

Flashbacks (strictly in cases of PTSD)

Flinching/jumping away from other people’s touch

Eyes looking all around trying to focus on something “real” instead of thoughts/images/memories being shown super vividly in your mind (almost seeming like they’re happening again)

Saying out-of-context things such as “I’m sorry,” or “please don’t hurt me,” because you’re busy watching the trauma happen all over again (linked with the one above)

Starting-to-Have-an-Attack but-Not-Quite-Completely-Having-One Symptoms

Shaking

Accelerated pulse

Hot flashes

Rapid breathing (but not quite hyperventilating)

Things Done to Help or Prevent Attacks

Wearing hair up (helps minimize hot flashes if you have long hair that covers your neck. I was once sitting in class, trying to figure out how to address the topic of a very-fresh incident with my soon-to-be-boyfriend and I started getting hot flashes. Earlier in the day one of my other friends [not knowing why I always wear my hair up] pulled the ponytail out of my hair, and I felt like I was going to throw up or pass out from the heat)

A “home source”, or something to wear to keep you connected to something you love or care about (this is what I do, but I don’t think it has to be clothing. I wear my boyfriend’s jacket 24/7 because the smell keeps it away. Seriously I have sang in front of people wearing it and I have yet to have an attack. 10/10 recommend)

Keep something to distract you (ex. Book, toy, etc) (it won’t keep it away, but will help make it not as bad)

Someone you are close to that can actually talk and get to you while in the middle of an attack (more about this next)

How to Help an Attack (based on my experience)

My boyfriend does this thing where he gets at eye level, puts a hand on each cheek (unless I express that I don’t want to be touched. NEVER FORCEFULLY PUT A HAND ON SOMEONE DURING AN ATTACK! THIS COULD MAKE IT WORSE!) and whispers at me to look at him (NEVER RAISE YOUR VOICE WHEN SOMEONE IS HAVING AN ATTACK! THIS COULD ALSO MAKE IT WORSE!) Once I look him in the eyes he starts “talking me down” and reassuring me that it’ll be okay, and he’s there: I listen to this. If a random person tries to help it’s almost like I can’t hear them. Find someone you’re close with and talk to them about this

Sometimes they need space. Clear the area

Possible Triggers (based on my experiences)

Mine comes from PTSD directed from violence, so just remember this is different for different causes.

Agressive yelling (joking yelling and loud rooms are fine. I go to a public school with literal thousands of other people talking over one another, and I myself tend to yell because it amuses me)

Stuff breaking (glass, plastic, etc. Some materials more than others)

Doors slamming (doesn’t max-out an attack, but gives minor symptoms)

Physical violence towards others, or even accidentally physically hurting me (story time: he [you can probably tell who I am referring to at this point] was once trying to be sweet and considerate and zip up my [technically his] jacket because I was shivering my boobs off, but accidentally caught my neck in the zipper. I started shoving him away and refused to let him near me until I calmed down a little because in my mind, he was trying to attack me)

Or even like this one time he was trying to bottle flip a little plastic thing of orange juice onto the breakfast table. It hit a bunch of empty containers of it (I really freaking love orange juice) and they all came flying at me. I froze in my chair, started shaking hyperventilating, and all that jazz and didn’t even know why

Do what you will with this information. Write it into a book. Help a friend. Go nuts. Just remember, while triggers can come from simple things, don’t over-exaggerate them. Good luck!

Being lonely is not what gets to you- it’s remembering what it was like to not be.

Poetry At Most