Smoke

People handle trauma differently. Whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or s****l; every trauma is valid, and everyone responds to it in a different way. Forever changed by the selfish actions of another. In the wake of tragedy, there are a number of underlying factors that guide someone down a certain beaten path. But to me, it's the journey that shapes a person into either their strongest or most vulnerable selves. It's the choices they make that define who they are as an individual. But… Which road do they choose to go down? Why was that the one they chose? Where do they want to end up once they reach the clearing? The answers you seek are influenced by infinite catalysts and infinite reactions. This begs the question… What causes trauma victims to respond so diversely from one person to the next? To which I respond - We may never know. Some people let the pain eradicate their being from the inside out until they have nothing left but the misery of their memories and self-deprecating thoughts that eventually eat them alive. They implode into a black hole of nothingness. They are nothing. They are worth nothing. They feel too much yet are void of any and all emotion at the same time. Others turn to self-induced blackouts caused by their drug of choice. Hoping and praying that their euphoria will take them out of this world, even for just a night. Once the magic wears off, they start all over again. They fall into a never-ending, vicious cycle of drugs or alcohol, or both. Self-harm usually comes into play. The inflicted pain on ones’ body gives a sense of control – overriding the mind, causing yet another high when the overwhelming feeling of numbness is too much to bear. Oftentimes, when the abuser is a parent or guardian, the kid will end up with someone just like the offender. Even without realizing it, victims can get caught in some cosmic force that draws them to people who will continue on the legacy. They may feel a sense of normalcy in it. They grew up with it. It’s typical, right? What’s most tragic is when the victim turns into the abuser. The brave ones—they get the help they need and go on to live normal lives. As normal as one could be, I suppose. The broken hand out their trust sparingly. Maybe even never trust again. They learned the hard way, and their fortified cinderblock walls keep them safe from further harm. Hesitant to let anyone close enough to inevitably disappoint them. So on, and so forth. Me? My traumas started young… too young. I turned to reckless behavior with no regard for what the consequence might hold. I was dealt a nasty hand in life, so I gambled the rest away for s*x, drugs, alcohol, self-harm, and shitty relationships that I stayed in far too long.  I didn’t care back then. Not about me anyway. Which, all in turn, led to more abuse. Some from strangers. Some from friends. I figured it was my fault for putting myself in those situations in the first place. So, I stayed, and I took my punishment. My trauma as a child was too much for me to handle. Literally, my brain just… blocked it out. My psyche split in two. Later on down the road, I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or otherwise previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Apart from the occasional flashbacks, which are essentially snapshots into my past, as well as the ever so frequent night terrors that haunt me while I sleep – I remember nothing. The memories? They were locked up and sealed tight inside a secret safe, hidden away in the center of a never-ending labyrinth by Rachel, my other half. My alter. Rachel bears the weight of all the pain – all the traumatic memories. She refuses to allow me to dig further for answers regarding what happened. The two specific memories that surfaced were a fluke, and they were enough to cause their own damage, triggering my PTSD. That said, they also led to more questions. I used to ask my mom about it, but she only found out about the abuse after the fact, so the facts she knew for certain were relayed by the police. Once I started getting too close to the truth or was in a situation that could trigger any memories, Rachel took over, fronting for me until she deemed my surroundings safe again. I always know when she’s coming because my ears begin to ring, and my eyes will go foggy, drowning out all surrounding stimuli, sending me into an almost euphoric state of darkness. And that’s only the beginning. Being the stubborn son-of-a-b***h that I am, I push her back, fighting tooth-and-nail for an ounce of awareness and dominance - craving so badly to feel like I’m still in control of my body. That I won’t just disappear from existence for hours… days… or even weeks at a time. But it’s a fight I frequently lose because of the skull-splitting headache that accompanies the haze shortly after my incessant pleads and protests. It feels almost as if she is trying to claw her way directly out of my head. Then everything fades to black. All happening within fleeting moments. As frustrating or infuriating as it is, not knowing a huge part of my life, I hold no anger or resentment towards her. Rachel is my protector. That’s why she’s here. So, I don’t blame her. She was born from my traumatized child psyche to shield me from the pain that my brain knew I could not possibly handle. The brain is a magical and mysterious place that will never be fully understood. Not in my lifetime, anyway. How can moments so important, moments that shaped me into who I am… just be gone? For the sake of full transparency, I’m not sure I want to find the answers, because I’m terrified that I’ll wind up even more f****d in the head than I already am as of current. I scare myself sometimes. On top of the lapses of time missing from my subconscious, I feel nothing. I know it is my brain’s defense mechanism against agonizing over the pain. Because I’m sure if I felt everything I’m supposed to feel after all the abuse I endured, it might just f*****g kill me. I lack most of the basic human emotions, specifically sympathy towards most other humans. Not in a sociopath or serial killer type of way – but merely a shielding myself from the evils of the world, way. It’s as though my mind can’t grasp how to connect what I recognize I should feel and the actual feeling in and of itself. To answer your burning question – Yes, there are a few select people I truly, sincerely love that make the list, because they’ve proven themselves worthy of trust. But otherwise – I. Just. Do. Not. Care. The only way I can describe it is that my feelings concerning someone, they’re like a light switch. They’re either on, or they’re off. When the switch is on – f**k – I unequivocally love or care about that person. I would move mountains for them. But when or if the switch turns off due to a wrongdoing… that’s it. That individual means nothing… like they no longer exist to me. I wipe them clean from my life. Apart from my select few, I do not give second chances anymore. One day I just had to come to the resolve that enough is enough. No more bowing down or apologizing for the actions of others. I only allow a person one shot. If they lie, cheat or hurt me… or anyone I love, then I’m done. They disappear from my life like a whisper in the wind, never to be thought of again. Sadly, the abuse later in life has been branded into my mind, apart from a few instances where Rachel took over to take the brunt force of the impact. These moments are what led me to build a massive stone barrier around myself – never fully allowing another person to see or get to know the real me. It’s weird though, because even after I closed myself off from the world, I didn’t sit around and mourn what happened to me. I vowed that I would never give my abusers more of myself or my time than that single day they took from me. They got one day. They’d never get the satisfaction of seeing my life fall apart due to their sins and lack of compassion for my life that they tried or didn’t care about enough to destroy. So, what the hell was it about him? How did I allow him to claw his way under my skin so deeply, that no force of nature or higher power could’ve willed me away from him? He unraveled me so slowly and with such intricate precision, that I missed it. Secretly tearing down my impenetrable fortress brick by brick. I didn’t know how far underwater I was until it was too late.