Nightmares

At night, the world changed.

The sun would set, and with it, any sense of safety I had managed to gather during the day would fade. I remember the way the darkness seemed to settle in my chest before it filled the room. I knew what was coming. I always knew.

I was just a child, but I learned how to lie with my face. I smiled at breakfast. I made my bed. I got good grades. I played the part. But my body held the truth. It remembered the silence, the weight, the fear that crept in after everyone else had gone to sleep.

No one noticed. Or maybe they did and chose not to ask. I became very good at disappearing while standing right in front of people.

I tried to pray it away. I thought if I were good enough, faithful enough, obedient enough, it would stop. I read scriptures under my blanket. I begged God to make it end. But the nights kept coming.

And then one day, they didn’t.

Eventually, life changed. I grew older, moved away, and tried to forget. I built walls so high I couldn’t hear myself think. For a while, I believed I was fine. Strong, even. But the body doesn’t forget. It speaks in panic attacks, nightmares, sudden tears, numbness. I didn’t understand at first. I only knew I was tired in a way sleep couldn’t fix.

It took years before I could even begin to say it aloud—to name what happened without shrinking under the weight of shame. In therapy, I learned to sit with the girl I used to be. I told her I believed her. That it wasn’t her fault. That she didn’t do anything wrong.

The truth didn’t break me. Hiding it did.

Now, when the lights go out, I am no longer afraid of the dark. It’s taken time, and work, and softness I never thought I deserved. But I am healing. I am here. And every day I reclaim a little more of the peace that was stolen.

I don’t need to whisper anymore.

What happened to me matters.

And I am finally learning that I do too.

We measure our recovery not only in functionality, but in time and distance. Every mile between Now and Then is precious, every passing calendar page a victory.

Distance, both geographical and temporal, brought deliverance. Measuring the time between major events in our life helps anchor us within our personal timeline, into how far we've come, and how long we've been here.

Our survival is surpassing its source, and our success is outlasting all our prior nightmares. What once felt impossible and impassable is now just pages in an old journal stashed in a storage trunk.

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #DissociativeIdentityDisorder #Trauma

I'm so exhausted. Every day I fight, every day my body works tirelessly to heal and recover. But I'm carrying such a heavy burden. I feel like my whole body feels tight, afraid, and constantly on guard for danger. Ever since my car crash and subsequent medical trauma I have felt afraid. I feel afraid of my own body. I'm on alert of signs that something is wrong all the time. What if I die? What if my accidentally break my healing bones? What if another emergency happens? The what ifs go on and on.

I hold myself so tight. I want to go back home, where I feel safe, but I have to stay with my sister because home isn't an emotionally safe place right now. I'm recovering from an ED and my sister who lives at home had weight loss surgery and there's no way I won't be exposed to "numbers" conversations (like about weight numbers) if I'm there. So I left to live with my other sister for a time.

I want to be in my mom's arms right now. I want to be told that I'm safe. It's been a month ago today since the car accident happened, and I know God saved my life for a purpose, but all I can think of right now is that my body feels like it's in danger all the time. I just want to be comforted, to feel safe again. I'm tired of living in a state of fight-or-flight. I'm tired of the nightmares. I'm tired of masking. I'm TIRED. I can't weather the storm all by myself! I need God! I need Jesus!

I need rest.

#MentalHealth
#AnorexiaNervosa
#Anxiety
#AutismSpectrumDisorder
#Autism
#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder
#ChronicIllness
#Depression
#EatingDisorders
#MajorDepressiveDisorder
#GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder
#Grief
#MajorDepressiveDisorder
#PTSD
#ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder
#Trauma
#CheckInWithMe
#MightyTogether

Hi, my name is Xffxf. I'm here because i have my story I survived rape twice when I was young. I was sexually assaulted while I was sick. It’s been six to seven years now, and I’ve carried it alone. I have daily nightmares about people trying to rape me. Yup that’s it

#MightyTogether

Saw my pain management provider this morning.
My last procedure didn't help me.
She's going to talk with the surgeon and see if there is anything else they try, but she didn't seem very confident, almost to the point of being sad as she talked.
She's also leaving her position at the pain management department at the hospital,.
and going to a different position .
Hope is gone.
Wishes are gone.
Happiness is gone.
I'm almost gone.
Nobody should have to live like this.
Thank you for the kind words you've said to me.
I can't fight anymore, I give in.
My nightmare is ending.

Don't let me give up

Another night of no sleep because the pain won't give up.
I spend so many nights not being able to fall asleep when the meds don't help.
I tried for 2 and a half years trying to get my doctor to listen to me.
This started in 2019 with a list of things I wrote down and tried to tell my doctor.
But he insisted on only letting me talk about "the worst thing", which was diarrhea and stomach pain.
I told him that those symptoms were only one percent worse than the rest of the things on my list, but that didn't matter to him. For dozens of appointments with him, four different GI doctors, and seven emergency room visits, nobody would let me talk about anything except the stomach problems.
Dozens of tests with no idea what was going on.
After I stopped seeing my primary care doctor because he wouldn't listen, I tried four other doctors with the same result, nobody would listen to my list.
Finally, in 2014, I found a new doctor who still cares about her patients, and she listened to me and my list.
They ordered an xray of my stomach, and accidentally found a compression fracture in one of my thoracic virtabra.
Then she ordered an MRI for my thoracic portion of my spine, and saw that there are actually 3 fractured virtabra in my spine.
All of those things on my list are all connected to the same thing, including the stomach problems.
Thanks to the doctors who refused to listen, nothing can be done to fix the nerve damage in my abdomen, and the compression fractures are so bad that it will take a major surgery to fix.
But being on Medicaid, they won't do anything about it until it's a life threatening issue.
So now, I get to live with all of the terrible pain for who knows how long.
Aren't doctors who won't listen to their patients awesome?
Doctors have destroyed my quality of life because they refused to listen to me, and a psychiatrist destroyed my mental health.
What does a person do now 🤔?
Why is He not letting me die so everything stops hurting?
I pray for the exact same thing every night, but I keep waking up anyway.
What did I do to piss God off in my past lives?
When there is no quality of life, you can't live and enjoy everything life has to offer you.
I can't do anything I used to enjoy so much, so what's the point 🤷?
I can't make it end because of my youngest son and what it would do to him 😪, but I can't keep going like this anymore.
I don't want to keep going like this, I want it to end.

But, I also want to be able to live again.