Always There

When you took everythingan unwanted gift remainedthe darkness and the painit's always there
When boiling waterrains down my bodycan't take away the factit's always there
When elusive laughterspreads across my faceim quickly brought backit's always there
When darkness fallsand sleep evadesI feel your touchit's always there
When silver flashesand the red river flowsonly numbs brieflyit's always there
When i forget for a seconda trigger breaks freeit comes back to meit's always there
When healing progressesIm two steps backYour gift weighs heavyit's always there
When life gets hecticthere's little time to thinkyet still somehowit's always there
When I'm called a survivorConfusions left behindHow is this surviving?it's always there
No matter how hardi try to move onit's always there...
...what's the point?

The Jar

On 7/1/2012 one of my best friends committed suicide. I had met him online years before, on a support forum, he was a fellow survivor.

Yesterday marked 6 months since his death and I still cannot accept the fact he's gone. It kills me everyday knowing I'll never hear his voice or see him again. I'm filled with anger at the people who hurt him, who made him think there was no way out, no hope.

I'm not a religious person, I don't really believe in life after death. But I do like to imagine he watches over me, it's a nice thought. I like to think of him as a butterfly, free from the darkness. I'm sure he's off flying somewhere, wings filled with all the colours of the rainbow. He had such a beautiful colourful heart.

I Wish I could be off flying with him.

I struggle with feeling suicidal myself and have previously attempted it, let's face it the world isn't exactly a nice place to live. But his death has shown me the pain it leaves behind. He didn't get rid of his pain he just transferred it onto me. I get angry with him about that sometimes but then again I'll take that pain if it means he is happy and at peace.

This drawing and poem is for my Penguin. For anyone who is feeling suicidal please seek help, call a helpline, anything. Death is so final, I have to believe there is always hope...

The Jar

Trapped inside
Wings folded tight
Darkness all consuming


The claws they grasp
Fog is swirling
Echos of screams is overwhelming


Hell's gates are closed
The fires deserted
The demons take residence here


Glass treasures the pain
The way is shut
Cruel taunt of life's design

-----------

Freedom Wings

Words breakaway

The pain i feel now you're gone

Taken too soon

Your shadow lingers in my light

I place no blame, the darkness is gone

Free from your jar

You're where you belong

Wish i could be in that perfect place

where you now reside

Flying free

Holding hands

I'm forever by your side

RIP

xx

Terrified

Past couple of weeks i've been so scared about something approaching. Lots of things have been hard/going wrong lately, i've not been coping very well, drinking, SI and other not nice thoughts BUT I'm still here. Had a friend who's been very poorly and i keep trying tell myself i shouldn't moan about my problems.... but my problems just seem to be overwhelming me and this scary thing happening this week feels like that darn straw thats gonna go break my back.

I've been back at Uni since taking a year out after my r*. My r***st works at my local hospital, and im training to be a nurse, usually my work placements are at this hospital but i've specifically asked to go to this other hospital, a 45 minute drive out my way (when my local one is 5mins down the road) because i can't comprehend bumping into him, can't even think about being in the same building as him. Only now i find out... i'm gonna have too 

My nursing school is being moved to this hospital only is not opening officially until after i graduate in september. However because our school is so crowded they have moved a bunch of my classes lectures to this new school at the hospital. Monday first day im supposed to go. There are 9 lectures at the moment but i guessing gonna be more. They are real important i can't miss them, and could seriously affect me if i didn't go. Im so terrifed, even typing this im fighting hard to not go be sick. The school is on the edge of the hospital so i dont need to go into the main building. Im gonna drive in, park at the carpark next to the school and walk right in. The only chance i have of seeing him is when driving through the grounds. But even this alone is killing me. Just knowing i'll be in the same vicinity as him ...  i can't do it. How can i do? I have no idea how people on pandys cope who have to still regularly see their abusers, i have serious admiration for people who do!
Im scared of seeing him
im scared of being in his presence even if it is in a large hospital
Im scared of having a panic attack in front of my class
scared of fainting
being sick
running out
collapsing....

I can't breathe.

Secrets Bound - Drawing

Representation of my heart

Goodbye November

I'm sorry I haven't posted this month. Things have been difficult following the anniversary and ive gotten a new puppy which is taking up a lot of my time. My mum allowed me to get her during my darkest days to have something to love and look after. Something to aid my healing. But its only recently i found the perfect pooch! Her name is Willow meaning 'freedom' I hope to be free from these chains one day. Therapy is getting so hard, she's really challenging me and pushing me every session. It takes so much out of me I guess I have no energy left to bare my soul on here. On a positive note I do have a website under construction. I have plans to turn TWOR a.k.a 'the war on rape' into a non-profit business raising awareness on sexual violence and providing support to survivors. It's quite exciting!!

Neglecting my blog is not something I take lightly and I know I need to reach out here more. I promise to try harder, it's just hard to open that locked box of secrets and despair.

Without Words

As you'll be aware (as its all I harp on about lately on here!) Is that one week tomorrow...will be my One year anniversary. I've been fighting to much just to get through the days...keep the smile plastered across my face for all to see that its just so exhausting I haven't had much time to write. 


What i've been really struggling with - which no doubt sounds so damn ridiculous - is that here in the UK at the moment we have to reality shows on at the minute, Xfactor and Strictly come Dancing. On BOTH shows there is someone who shares the first name of my abuser. Naturally everyone in my house watches these shows and every weekend I have to 'his' name echoing up the stairs. It send chills through my bones, and on occasion has sparked a flashback. I hate this, it effects me so much, i go into a supermarket and the cashier has his name,
I go to a restaurant and the guy says 'Hi my name is C... and ill be your waiter this evening'. I can't escape him, I can't escape it, I can't escape from my own mind.


Another thing I have been struggling with is the fact my family who I live with, have gone away for a week. They will be back 2 days before my anni, but im all alone in the house leading up to that time. I've got my therapists number on speed dial in case of any emergencies, but it scares me just knowing that sometimes I feel capable of being in an 'emergency'. Im trying my hardest, although admittedly sometimes I wonder what it is im fighting for.


For next week, as of monday because i know ill be without words, instead i am going to post a single photo that represents how i am feeling that day, leading up to my anni on the 23rd.....


Stay tuned, and thanks for all of you who read this blog and offer your support.

Writers Block

Posting on my blog has been difficult for me of late. The same can be said for a survivor support forum i regularly use. I remember a time when i would reach out all the time! Post whatever is running through my mind in hope for some support from a kind stranger. Its getting harder and harder to reach out. The only person i am truly honest with is my therapist...in fact even that is a lie, i'd say I'm 80% honest with her. I lie to everyone now.
'How are you doing?' 
'Yeah I'm okay thanks, how are you?' - Why is it so damn hard to just tell the truth! 


I get so frustrated with the people who are aware of what's going on with me, they often just accept that answer and ask no more questions. I feel like they should know I'm not okay, they should know when i don't want to talk, and when in fact i'd like to but perhaps scared to bring it up incase of bringing a downer to the conversation. I know i can't expect people to be psychic but i'd like to think at least the people in my life who know me well, know enough to know when i am not okay!


I guess what's got me thinking about this, is my anniversary. 11 month anniversary. Tomorrow.


I am dreading the stroke of midnight on my clock-face.


Each time i don't know how I'm going to get through the day. Things would be so much easier, so much more peaceful if when i went to sleep...i never awoke the next morning. The hardest thing about tomorrow is knowing its my last 'month' anniversary. The next one is one year. One Year. I know for sure i can't survive this one. The week before my family are going away to Spain, they will be back for the 23rd but (and i'd never admit this to them) I'm scared of them leaving in the approaching week. Because I'm scared of what i may be capable of doing. My mum has been begging me to try to find some money to go with them, i know this is because she is afraid to leave me alone.


If anyone has any advice on how to get through the month of October and the 23rd, please let me know. I'm drowning here.


.....Wake me up when October ends.....

What's wrong with me?

I think something is seriously wrong with me.

Today i worked at a place ive never worked before, at a low secure units for criminals who have mental health issues.
I started the shift nervous - as it was all male criminals - but ending up being fine, they were all really nice and friendly, lovely to me, made me drinks. Then i asked the nurse about the unit and she told me about it, said if im interested to read their files....

Well first the guy i'd just been chatting for ages was a baby killer, murdered his baby boy  (in his bad mental health state thought he was the devil and killed him)
And then i find out there is a rapist and a man who indecently has exposed himself to his children in the past.

I now have to work with these people. Weird thing is, on another ward about a month ago, i encounted a child molester, it made me so ill, and i refused to nurse him and stayed far far away from this creep, made so uncomfortable. This time.....it didnt phase me! WHY!!!

Is it because i am so disconnected from everything? from my R*? from other people's R*?
Both these incidents were many many years ago and they had both served time for it, they were now serving time for things like stealing etc and were in the unit due to the mental issues they had. But thats besides the point, these people have seriously affected someone elses life, regardless of how long ago it was, regardless of the fact they had served there time. For some reason the fact they were sexual offenders didnt seem to connect in my head....i even played pool with one of them!!! I was thinking i should beating the shit out of this guy with the pool que and yet the feelings of hatred and disgust just didn't connect. WHY! I feel like a freak, i feel like ive betrayed myself and all other survivors out there. Its so hard because its my job and i cant just ignore these people and treat them like shit, but what is bothering me is the fact that it all just didn't phase me. Didn't affect me.

What also is making me feel so disgusting is the fact there was a staff member there that looked quite a bit like my rapist. At first i had a mini attack but then calmed myself down assuring myself it wasn't him. But then he kept coming over and talking to me. He was nice. Whats worse is...i kind of fancied him. WHAT?! i fancied a guy who looks a bit like my rapist! I mean my rapist was tall, dark and quite good looking (what i normally go for) and there are a lot of people who obviously will look like him, and its freaking me out the fact that i am going to be attracted to these people? This is so messed up and confusing me and making me feel so disgusting. But then i can hardly go and change my type in men? Im so sorry to be ranting, im probably not even making any sense, ive just walked through the door in such a daze, i cant explain my behaviour today and its making me hate myself even more. I feel so dirty and disgusting.

Please can someone help me make sense of all this, i feel like such a disgusting freak.
It's almost like i was fine at work, but now im at home the truth is starting to sink in and i feel myself becoming triggered by todays events, i think its going to be a bad night

Please if you dont hate me for how ive behaved today...please sit with me

Running. Masks. Despair

Recently had another wave of depression swoop over me, leaving my blog a little neglected the past week.


Went away over the weekend to Wales, to a little town i have visited every year since i was a baby. In fact its the 3rd time i've been this year and im going back again in a couple of weeks. Its really my second home, i often dream of running away from my city with all its reminders and abuser ever present lurking somewhere in these city streets. Running far far away to my little quiet village in wales where no body knows my history, knows what im running from. Where there is no fear of running into 'him'. I wish it was a possibility.


I thought that getting away might lift this depression slightly, but it hasn't. I have come back feeling as a low as over. I can't seem to shake that as of tomorrow it will be September the 1st - the month i met my abuser. After that will be October - the month 'it' happened, one year ago. Im not sure how i am going to get through this.


I have no therapy this week as my therapist is in court all week. Its scary how much i rely on these weekly meetings, that one hour (sometimes two) every week where i can take off my mask, and be the girl who is suffering to survive after her rape. The rest of the time i am the girl who is 'ok' after surviving a bad trauma. I get so tired of wearing this mask. Its an exhausting week knowing i don't have that one hour outlet to verbally puke out all the thoughts swimming in my head and have them listened to and receiving a supportive response.


Like i said, its scary how much i depend on my therapist. On that hour.
Till next week i guess im stuck to deal with this despair on my own.
Oh well....rant over....


.....time to put back on that smiling mask!

BOOM!

Yesterday was my 10 month anniversary.


I was so dissociated and disconnected that a few days back somehow i managed to book an afternoon shift at work on that date.I woke up in the morning feeling so down and like i just wanted to sleep and never wake up. So i laid between the sheets and went back to sleep. At 12pm my alarm went off for work. Feeling this crappy i didnt want to go to work. But i got up, I turned off my alarm and saw the date....then it all clicked. No, more like exploded. BOOM. memory, memory, flashback, memory. Being so disconnected meant i now had to go to work on my anniversary. I didn't know how i would get through, especially when it turned 6pm...roughly when the assault happened. But i had to go, so i went.


My tactic was to continue using a tool i am very good at. Dissociate from the date and what it meant to me. I spent the shift trying to push down all the stuff that was trying to seep out of my subconscious. I made it to 6pm which is when luckily they sent me on my break. I just sat in the staff room staring into space like a brain dead zombie. Thinking about what was happening at this time 10 months ago. I felt so empty and lifeless, i felt no pain, no emotion, nothing. Is that normal? Shouldn't i have been distraught and crying, feeling sick, shaking? Thats how they normally go! On the one hand i am so fed up of being disconnected from it all but then on the other hand i know I AM the one that keeps myself disconnected, because sometimes when the connections start to form i can feel myself disconnecting them again. Why am i doing this??


I made it to the end of my shift and came home at 9.30pm. Got in between the shifts, and talked to a fellow survivor online. Shed some tears with her.


What scares me the most about anniversaries is that it is month closer to the one year mark. Something i am TERRIFIED of. My next anniversary will be 11 months....the next,....1 year! I don't understand how it has almost been a year, that seems impossible, it feels like only three months ago. Where has this time gone??


I am curious as to when its  been one year, do begin counting your anniversary as years now rather than months? Cause i have a feeling im going to still be counting the months (13 months, 18, months, 24 months). Is that strange and obsessive? At what point does it become yearly? Because monthly ones are damn exhausting!

Is this what crazy feels like?

Im not going to deny i can be pretty hyper-vigilant at times, given everything i have gone through i guess its understandable but tonight reached whole new levels of craziness! Maybe it's because of what happened at work yesterday i don't know, but tonight i became sure there was someone in the house.


I was sat in my room, talking to friends on the laptop, when i begin hearing noises downstairs. I brush it off as the wind, but it continues. Before long i hear a mans quiet voice. I freeze. I'm alone in the house.....what is that noise?


I assure myself that both doors are locked, that no one is downstairs and to stop being silly. But I am now listening intently, barely breathing, my heart beats faster as I deffinately now can hear male grunting and movements sounding like walking.


Thinking logically I think if someone was in the house they'd be stealing and making a lot more noise than that also they would know I was in and wouldn't they come upstairs! Both doors are locked, no no, no one could be in the house. It would be silly to call the police and waste their time....


But I continue hearing these noises, wind can't be in my living. I'm frozen stiff. I text my mum who is at work, she said she is finishing soon and will be home in half an hour. I try to calm down but I couldn't, kept continuously hearing a male voice and movement. My friends online kept tael ing me to call the police. I just didn't want to look stupid when they got here and no one was here! Then a big truck races down my street and parks near my drive with two men in the front. I've never seen this truck in my life. I'm now thinking is that what the burglar downstairs was waiting for. The noises downstairs get louder. I finally think fuck this, and call the police. Whispering down the phone I think there might be a man in my house. In less than 10 minutes a huge police van with 3 offices pulls up outside. The noises stopped.


I speak to them out my window, afraid to go downstairs. They say they can see no signs of entry and ask me to come open the door. Holding my breath I go downstairs.


Twat. Of course there is no one there!!


I open the door to the offices who come in and look round the whole house for me. Nothing. Oh my god I felt so stupid!! I told them I'd be listening to this noise for about Half an hour before I called them. Told them about the van.


Well they left, probably disappointed they didn't get to ambush some criminals. I apologised saying I wouldn't have called if I wasn't frightened and sure I could hear it. They said it was ok, they'd rather check and be sure there wasn't and that I was safe.


So they left. Leaving me with my embarrassment, craziness and thinking what on earth was that voice!! I hate the way being a survivor affects you :-(


Hearing a mans voice, movements, and getting out the police, I'm officially insane.

Struggling with little self worth

Since everything happened, i have very little self worth and don't think very highly of myself. I often can't look myself in the eyes in my reflection in mirrors. I don't like myself very much. 

I am weak

I've struggled bad with something today. At work a 50 year old doctor came onto me...im only 22. Hes older than my dad. Yesterday i thought i saw him taking photos of me at work...today i find out he did. He asked me to meet him after work as he wanted to talk to me about something, said he would meet me by my car. He then suspiciously came out with 'dont worry im not a rapist or a stalker or something'.... who says that?!?! I spent the whole day worried about the end of my shift. At the end as i walked to my car he wasn't in sight, i was so relieved, i got in the car and went to drive off as he popped up next to my car. I got out saying 'oh sorry i forgot you wanted a chat'. He tells me he is very intrigued by me and just wanted to get to know me, but thought i might get into trouble talking at work. He said he doesnt mean me any harm, he just wants to be my friend. He said he likes the way i look.....and liked my tattoo's which made me more attractive. By this point my heart was in my throat. Boom Boom Boom. Said he would like to meet me one time. Gave me his phone number which he had already pre-written. It felt like i was standing there for hours. He told me not to worry that he had deleted them photos, but can he please have another one...i asked him why, he said because i like looking you  he then said bye....and

stroked my chin  

I came home and burned the number, went in the shower and scrubbed my chin until it was practically bleeding (i now look pretty stupid!) I feel so sick, so dirty. Im terrified of working back on that ward. I don't know what to do. I feel to scared to report to his superior as he is a respected psychiatrist. Im too scared to report it to my superiors because they know about my r* and if i then tell them this...will they just think i am a liar.

I think any other person probably could have brushed this off, thinking 'eww pervert'. But because of what ive been through, i dunno its triggered me so bad.

But most of all.....i hate myself!!!!!!! Since my r* i've said to myself should anything ever happen similar or where i feel threatened i am going to stand up for myself and fight. Im going to be brave. Today i literally just stood there, scared little girl, telling him 'sure thats ok! and yeah sure we can meet!' WHAT THE FUCK! i'm such a coward, i feel like someone should just shoot me i'm so pathetic.

Im also now wondering, do i attract people that are sick and twisted in the head???? Do i have victim written on my forehead? Am i set up for a lifetime of abuse, or inappropriate sexual behavior towards me?

Maybe i should just allow people to abuse me, if thats all i am worth

I don't know what to do