Unseen Battles

Sometimes it feels like I am alone and in a sense, I guess I am. See, unlike a battle scarred veteran who wars are told on his skin, my war can not be seen by others. I pass for whatever normal means these days, I make it through social interactions wearing a carefully crafted mask that comes with its own guide to approved behaviors. I can switch between the masks almost instantly if the need arises but nifty little tricks like that come at a high cost, a king’s ransom could compare.

My thoughts are always racing, voices always over playing, memories on repeat that I wish I could delete. I dissect every moment like a crime scene for the smallest hints of changed behaviors, difference in tones, a variation in their writing. Any ‘clue’ my brain convinces itself is true. Distrust. I mean, if I can’t trust me - how can I possibly in my right mind, trust you? This is what makes sense to me. See, I told you that silly mask tricks came at a cost, but there’s more.. You get lost..

Your mind slowly becomes your enemy, I know, mine deeply betrayed me - tricking my body into believing that it’s always in danger, that death is imminent and if I can’t get out of here right now I’m going to die! This happens moments after opening my eyes.

Sometimes it only last minutes while other times it last hours upon hours and my body seizes up. The muscles jerk and spasm sometimes with little warning. The seizures feed off the stress of the panic attack and the panic attack rebounds off the fear of having another seizure or panic attack. A savage never ending circle, my brain preys on my body like a lion stalks the antelope.

As tough as I may try to be, as hard as ai may act - I refuse to admit the fact that I am indeed… delicate. My body and mind have both been torn down and abused to the point that we can’t figure out if our very existence is the trigger to our issues.

I say ‘our’ even though I really mean me, there’s another voice besides me. We call him the Narrator. I’m told he’s my conscience, or my internal monologue but he’s a mind of his own and he’s not always there. Distrust. Remember it? I can’t trust myself, I can’t admit something like that. I’m making that up, it’s for attention, why can’t I be normal…

They can’t admit something like that. They need me to make it up. They claim it’s for attention. They say I’m not normal…

Those are just the psychological parts of the warfare that my brain has decided play, it’s what I get for being a torture tactic enthusiast, my body was my first physical victim. My fear of not being hurt enough to seek treatment has left me with more injuries under my skin. No one can see the bone grinding on bone, no one can see the nerves leaving trails of fire down my back or feel it as my leg tries to give feeling like dead weight. No one sees my lungs staying half starved as I can not breath deep, trauma response to having the life choked out of me. Appear to quit breathing and they’ll release me sooner. So no one sees the massive Boulder sitting on my chest as my lungs beg me to breathe deep. I can’t.

I can’t and it’s killing me.

You see, a girl like me knows what it feels like to be cast out, thrown away like trash on a Sunday, labeled a pariah and avoided like a leper. I know how cruel humans can be from society to family, friends to enemies, lovers to…strangers.

It’s knowing these pains, the ability of empathy that makes me a rarity. Not so much a rarity as potentially uncommon and yet overly mimicked for views and trends. I no longer know if I’m authentic to me or a creature crafted by the negative experiences with society.

According to society, I can’t love me. I have to be beautiful by society’s standards to be deserving of love. That means I need to be prim and proper enough to be a lady but sexy, slutty and seductive enough to make him feel like I’m worth fucking. No curves, no rolls, thick thigh high guys say saves lives but I’d rather have a thigh gap and be tiny… delicate in its most toxically beautiful meaning to me…

I pass for whatever basic and normal is as long as these thoughts stay to myself. My mind and my body are my personal hell but I’ll smile and tell you hello, I hope your day goes well because I know we each have our own battles, our own dark tales and even though I can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there..