Collateral Damage

Collateral damage. Casualties of war. Phrases from movies or books or songs. Ideas that are distant and across the ocean. Nothing that is real and personal.

Right?

So what do you do when you are collateral damage? What do you do when you are the intended target? What do you do when you are caught in the crossfire? What do you do when you pull the trigger yourself?

ah, the minefield of life, the battlefield of adulting....

So I learned about something today: Complex post traumatic stress disorder. A charming little thing. Very interesting. Disassociation, numbness, depression....a veritable world of fun.

throw that in the blender, add a heaping serving of stress, shake in the seasoning of abusive leanings, stir in some really unhealthy coping mechanisms and turn on the blades of 'nobody likes you, everybody hates you, why are you alive?' and voila! My life.

Okay, okay. So Obvious my head is still keeping above the disaster area that is the muck of...whatever you want to call the abused, depressed disaster inside my head. I'm still treading water. For now. Usually. Most days. On good days.

What did someone tell me recently..... "Two steps back and one step forward is still moving forward"?

It just hurts a lot, those two steps backward. The step forward hurts too. Reopening another wound, realising I was hemorhaging somewhere all this time, getting hit on the head with the neon sign after I missed the letters.....

I am tired.

I am frustrated, caught in the middle, struggling to know myself, and trying to get my feet beneath me long enough to stand. I feel as if every time I get a foot up, something else gets thrown at me and I am tossed back into the maelstrom of everything going on. I feel as if I have no hope, as if I will never succeed. I feel as if I have made a mistake in trying this - in trying to heal and be something. I feel....

I feel nothing. I feel a heavy weight in my chest and stomach that is just sort of...there. No real feeling - just a weight. Just something squishing everything. I feel trapped, cornered. I feel worthless. I feel as if I am a burden, as if I only ever destroy. I feel as if every single good thing bout me, I only know how to misuse.

I only know enough to know that I am a mess. to myself, I am normal - I am right. I am all I have known.But when I am hurting those around me, when I am destroying the friends that are the only family I have left..... I am in the wrong, and I have to get better.

Just as with the Lord's mercy I will never be abused again, I also desperately pray that I will not be an abuser. It terrifies me more than the thought of seeing Dad again does. I know I do it, I have the tendencies, and it is all I was taught. Bad teaching, but teaching nonetheless.

I somehow have to heal without knowing what to heal. I have to have healthy relationships with no clue as to what is 'healthy'. I have to be independent with no idea who to trust to teach me how to be. I have to....

I have to, I have to, I have to; and all I want to do is curl up somewhere and just...stop.

I want to stop. Stop everything. I want to stop feeling, stop not feeling. I want to stop hurting. I want to stop thinking. I want to stop planning. I want to stop being. I want to stop caring. I just want to stop.

I will be alright. Of course I will be.

I don't even really know what's wrong with me. I wrote this post to try to maybe unravel some of it, but I don't know how. I am caught between two sides, and I don't know where to step - how to act.

"Be careful not to be caught in the crossfire."

Sorry. I think I already got riddled a few times. Now I think I might be caught three ways, with myself shooting as well.

Isn't that a lovely picture.....

Have fun with your thanksgivings. Have fun with your normal little heads. Have fun with your good families and support systems.

Pray for those of us who don't even know what a healthy relationship is, let alone how to act in one. Pray that we can keep from destroying and throwing away everything worthwhile as we heal.

We desperately need the prayers.