Odd Feeling

I've been feeling strange for quite some time now. It's hard to explain, but it's one of those things that you can just sense you, yourself, are "off".

Looking through Facebook tonight, because I have very little to do in Small Town without a current graduate nurse permit... anywho, it occured to me that I have had to train myself to live in the present moment for the last several months. Actually, about a year and a half now. Don't get me wrong, I'm excellent at "tuning out" and dissociating. However, my dreams of the future have been dampened dramatically to trying to focus on the "here and now" so that I can get myself through each new hour that I am left breathing here on this planet.

There are still days I wake up startled from nightmares.

I still have several panic attacks a week/month (on a good month).

My eating and self-care is not nearly where it needs to be.

Flashbacks still occur several times every hour.

I don't like people at the door, it freaks me out.

Even in a different state, the sight of trucks freak me the fuck out. Doesn't matter if they're red, green, purple, neon orange, any color of the damn rainbow; they freak me out... again...



Ragardless, these things have become my new normal. Flashbacks and nightmares and trucks still frighten me to my core, but I am not as notably shaken to everyone else because I've been battling this shit for over a year now.

For a year I haven't been able to dream for my future. I can't think about a time when I'll be completely free of these burdens because that day will never come, until the day I die. The suicidal thoughts have subsided a bit. I've been able to cut down on my self-harm and the way I used to take mass amounts of Benadryl, Tylenol, and Ibuprofen to self-sedate my brain into sleep for a few days. Most days, I am able to get myself something to eat and I'm drinking more water than wine, again.

Still, my hopes for a future are essentially nonexistent at this point. On one level, it's a little nice to not keep getting my hopes up, just to have them crushed year after year. On a deeper level, of me as a 22-year-old young "lady" (quotes because let's be honest, I'm a complete tomboy besides these past few months of ridiculous whiny posts) still wants to be able to dream about G-d providing a husband for me, a white gown and walking down the aisle. Someday having children, continuing on with my nursing education, teaching my children how to live with lots of animals and teaching them about the various things in life. This, teaching them about life, is usually where I shift into reverse and convince myself a future needs to not happen.

Getting to the point in my imagination that there is a husband and there are children is a long, long process. It used to be something to look forward to, ponder, and pray about. Now, it feels like pulling teeth and I find myself begging the Good L-rd to have someone who is patient and kind enough to be able to handle my crap baggage. Then it slows even more because I get to thinking about how being with me would not be fair to a single soul. That's about the time that all past roommates and all the negative comments about how badly I suck start playing through my mind...

Anyway, in the off chance I get to the point where I think about the things to teach my imaginary children, I come to a complete stop when I think about them being any older than an infant. How can I handle them going to a sleep over where I'm not there? What if the friend has older siblings? Are those older siblings supervised? What happens when we have to have the "sex talk"? Do I tell them about what happened to me? Will that cause trauma? Will that make them over-paranoid? When they are in high school/college, will they be able to stay safe from the horrors inflicted upon me? Will I have days where I stay in bed and call my mom or mother-in-law to deal with the kids because I simply can't? How do I explain to them the days when I'm weepy, dissociated, sad, numb, or completely unable to function? How is this fair to kids? How would this be fair to a husband?

How the hell is any of this shit fair to me? I didn't ask for any of these assaults.

A year and a half ago, I was going about life, excited to be a nurse and to see what my future had in store. One absolute shitty year changed it all for me.

I'm still taking my life hour-by-hour, sometimes I work myself up to a day-by-day mentality. Those days, where I'm not living hour-by-hour, are surprisingly my "good" days.

Maybe someday I'll get to a point where I can dream about a future. Maybe, someday, I'll have a future.

June 12 was supposed to be my "wedding day". Haha, that was the date I picked for the wedding of exfiance and I. That day came and went and it was one of the best, most freeing days I've had in a long time. It was a day where I woke up knowing that I dodged a bomb. No, he was not bullet to dodge, he was a fucking bomb!!! I'm by no means completely safe, and I have a long way to go before I am healed, but I am free. Praise the L-rd for that.

My Simple Dream

In an effort to be totally real with y'all, so that you know that everyone struggles with silly stuff, I want to confess something to you guys. I keep coming up with situations that seem fun in my head or ideas of the type of guy I want and somehow I turn them into a type of prayer that is really more of my telling G-d a laundry list of things I want. Recently, I have caught myself almost asking, "L-rd, is this too much to ask?" I don't really mean it, but it's gotten into my head somehow. Maybe I picked it up from some of the funny quotes I'm bombarded with everyday or perhaps it was sprinkled through Pinterest. Either way, I'm appalled at myself for ever even thinking to ask G-d this. All thing are possible through Him because He created ALL things. He could give me the things I think I want, but would that be a good idea? Probably not, that's why He hasn't given them to me. Or, maybe He is saving it for sometime in the future. I don't know which because I can't see to the end of my life and all that happens between now and then. Sometimes I wish I could, but it's probably best that I can't.

Lately, I've really been craving a good, down-home, proper, country bonfire. Now, my college tried to hold a "bonfire" to celebrate homecoming week. Nothing about it was right.

The bonfires I'm talkin' 'bout have music up on a flatbed trailer because that's the only right way to do it...

 

But, if you don't have buddies in a bad, a circle of trucks with their radios cranked on the same station will do...

You gotta have beer (for those 21 and over)...








And you have to have loads of people surrounding the main even, a large pile of fire. Yes, fire can be in a pile, just trust me on this one...

These are just the necessities! You also typically need some fun guys and gals. Some down-to-earth country boys are usually the best fit because they worked hard all day/week and are ready for some fun!

Add in a tractor pulling a little trailer outfitted with some benches of straw/hay and you got yourself the best hangout you could imagine...

There may be some swimmin', and that includes skinny dipping, but I don't roll that way because I just don't. I can't even wear a tank top with my closest gal pals, how am I supposed to take off everything but my birthday suit or skivvy's to go swimming in some leech infested, stagnant water? No thank you! I will go in broad daylight wearing my nun's outfit of a "bathing suit" and that'll do me.

Guns may be brought out before the sun sets all the way and before people are completely plastered just to blow some steam and get some good chemicals (oxytocin, my favorite hormone, among others) pumpin' through everyone's veins...

Most of all, bonfires are just about kickin' back, chillin' and having a good time with your friends after a lot of work and likely a lot of stress. I haven't been to a bonfire, let alone a good bonfire since I was a kid. I couldn't drink at those either, because I was a child (probably 10 and under), but I sure did have a good time anyway! All of us kids, meaning me (the only girl) and all the boys (around 5-10), would run around lighting fire crackers, roasting marshmallows, and doing everything that was frowned upon in "normal" life. Normal life simply means the city life full of suburbs, people everywhere telling me what to do, and nobody having similar views on the way life should be handled. Those weekends were like family reunions and happened nearly every other weekend. Those people are my family especially because we don't talk to my mom's family and we aren't super close with my dad's side either. But we were so close with that huge group of friends that were closer and more connected and committed than our biological family. I miss that.




Another confession is that I have been craving a beer or some type of alcohol all week. I know that it will not necessarily make life more fun. Also, it's not good to "self medicate" with mood altering drugs. Not to mention, I'm only 19 and have never had a drink before, but I'm getting this craving for beer again. The Bible says: "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God" (Ecclesiastes 2:24). But, I'm also supposed to follow the law because G-d said so. I doubt that I would/will ever get plastered, but I just want some kind of fun in my life! Alcohol never seemed like it would be fun or worth it until this summer at about the same time that boys suddenly became attractive. Dagnabbit! (That is how you spell it. It is a word. Well, where I come from it's a word.) What kind of trauma did I incur that I now want to drink a little bit, go to bonfire parties, have a boyfriend, and actually find boys cute!?!

Haha, I told my friend that I never used to think guys were cute until sometime this summer and she informed me that it happened suddenly to her too... somewhere in middle school... at the beginning of puberty. I'm not convinced that I may be slightly academically developed, thought I'm certainly still working on that, but I am severely developmentally delayed. I'm in college and just now starting to think guys are cute. What is going on?!