Hurt: a. a bodily injury or wound. b.: mental or emotional distress or anguish: suffering.
The funny thing about accepting that you need help is that it comes when you are all worn out of strength, however during this stage you are numb. You seemingly reach a point where you can hold back the tears without even trying. A point where hurt has become a part of you so much its addictive. Happiness feels wrong, having a good day is an abomination cause all you know is disappointment, heartbreak, and neglect to a certain degree.
The words “I am sorry I hurt you” become somewhat a part of some sort of routine which creates an invisible box of comfort. Comfort in knowing something bad will happen and someone will say sorry, and it all seems ok. It all seems normal, so much so being “OK” for too long doesn’t seem right.
One could ask how do you become prone to hurt or rather “numb”, how long does it take, how did you realize that you were numb? What type of people reach this point? What situations trigger this sense of “Ohk, so he hurt me just like I thought he would, its Ok, let me move on”?
Its different for everyone, everyone’s experiences are not the same. Some people go through the most horrifying scenarios from a young age, these scenarios mainly defined as childhood trauma. On the other hand, some people experience this when they are much older, and it creates a sense of “Why my life should suddenly become so difficult now when I have been sailing smoothly for the past 20 plus years”.
Hence, everyone’s experience is different when it comes to hurt.
Some people are lucky enough to not become mentally strained by the things that hurt them. The scary part about becoming “care-free” are the risks of developing psychosis or depression, Well that’s what the internet claims.
Am I depressed? I don’t believe so, I believe I am perfectly fine, and I have learnt to manage my emotions to a certain extent. Does my therapist think I am ok? NO.
If you know me personally you may be shaken by the term “Depressed” coming up here, as I come across as a Jolly person, so I have heard.
Hurt didn’t take me by surprise anymore.
It was a sense of relief to not be bothered by how much it hurt.
It became a norm.
Disappointment was a sense of relief; somehow contradicting what relief really was.
I carried myself in and out of normal messes.
What is normal anyway?
But how did I get here? How did I get to a point where heartbreak became a part of me and how did I teach myself to feel again? How did I teach myself to cry after I held back for a long period of time?
Childhood Trauma: “The experience of an event by a child that is emotionally painful or distressful, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.”
I was a young happy kid at some point, loved life and played along with other’s until I didn’t.
Until the day I realized that I wasn’t as happy as I thought I really was.
Self-pity and neglect were somewhat a part of my story at this point. Raped at 5 by the man who was “supposed” to care for my being. I carried this knowledge of being a raped child with me so much that it stole from me my childhood. It covered me in shame and neglect, well I could say the thoughts of the event made me feel unworthy and unloved.
I remember that very day when a blood bath was found in my underwear, tears couldn’t stop running from my mothers’ eyes, oh she was hurt. I remember her taking me to the doctor that day. The taxi was so cold, the room they took me too to examine me was filled with scary tools and a screen displaying my privates. I had to spend days if not weeks recovering in hospital.
I remember how I would get so mad at her for leaving me there. It didn’t make sense to a young girl to be left to sleep in the cold lonely hospital bed all by herself.
It broke me, I blamed myself for the pain she was going through every time she came to visit me, and I believed my punishment was that cold bed I had to sleep on alone.
You know sometimes we judge situations from the outside of a person’s feelings and perspective. It’s something you don’t learn overnight. It comes with you as you grow, I judged her at that time for punishing me. But she was only trying to get me help so I can one day sit here and write this, I guess. Tell my story and outgrow the hurt, yes, the pain is this there, but it doesn’t have to be so piercing as it was before. I guess.
Now imagine how a 5-year-old feels, the trauma of being abused, the trauma of being left, the trauma of assuming you are not loved or rather worthy, the constant reminder of the fairytale where you identified yourself as the bad guy who steals everyone’s happiness and mocks herself constantly.
Bruised and a piece of my childhood lost…
Replaced by trauma and guilt that I created in my head all because I didn’t know how to react to the circumstances I was given to live with.
Did I feel like it was fair? NO, it felt surreal to be a victim of such acts and I can only imagine what a child so young felt in her little heart. A heart that was meant to be blissful, happy, fun, and somewhat fearless to face the world.
Rape “a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent.”
Rape took from me that I can’t replace, it defined me my whole life, I fell prey to the events of that day.
I fell prey to the thoughts and emotions that came with it. It shifted my belief in fairness and Love, so much that for the longest of times I felt unworthy of it. Even though at times I would forget of hide this emotion in my consciousness. I found ways to fall victim to the negative thoughts that surrounded it.
Whenever something or someone would be taken away from me, I felt as though this is my fate.
I don’t deserve good things.
When I had friends in school, and they would choose better friends other than me.
It felt normal.
Why would a child who has cried and felt pain her whole life be given a chance to true happiness.
According to me happiness is temporary but pain, Pain is constant.
Neglect, heartbreak, hurt, grief, rejection you name it all, came to me as constant reminder that if you couldn’t be happy for the first 5 years of your life what makes you think any friendship, relationship, asset would last you for more than that. You are defined by your fate and your fate isn’t that pretty.
I remember my first true Love, oh what a story to tell.
He was handsome, dark, tall, and charming. He would embrace me with sweet soul music. Pick me up from work, drive me home and charm me with words so sweet I felt like I was a bee collecting honey.
This man had my heart, took me on my first vacation on my birthday. He had a daughter who I loved so dearly. He would make love to me countless times on spontaneous occasions. I felt loved and wanted. I remember being so high with love that my mother would gaze and smile at me.
Well, what does my fate say or what did I believe my fate said…
No girl you are so happy, and it’s been over a year now, lets let him break your heart!
Boom! Just as I thought.
When I broke up with this guy it broke me so much because I was so invested in him/us, I guess.
I had plans to be a good wife a carrying mother to our children and to protect and love him without fail.
I remember setting myself free from him but consistently going back for years I kept running back to him whenever any inconvenience would make way.
Even after I met my next charm, his love was toxic but addictive.
For more than 4 years I would always find myself in his arms even if its just twice a year.
Now this type of addiction is toxic but fulfilling. It makes one feel wanted yet rejected. It makes you want more and more of it. You can forget about it and possibly “move on” but the constant reminder gels in you until you allow yourself to let go. At this point the “charm” wants even more but you have parted ways with your addictive need of him.
You see when we broke ties at first, I questioned myself, questioned my fate, questioned my purpose. Was I even worthy, was I at any point good enough to be his and did he see need to claim me.
You see these thoughts they come when you are at your lowest.
Suddenly good seems bad and bad seems perfect.
Suddenly the thought of ever being worthy of anything great, life long and worth fighting for seems like a big fat fail.
This 5-year-old sad girl would crawl back into my shadow and overshadow my ability to see myself as worthy, instead of me accepting that not all relationships are meant to last.
Or nothing lasts forever as most would say.
I would consistently blame my wondrously dark fate.
These dark low self esteem thoughts followed me around, they would hide close by and would crawl back at any inconvenience. It seemed normal to carry this memory and to blame myself for every unfaithful event that brought it to light.
It was like a dead flower that would suddenly bloom in the dark.
When this flower blooms it suffocates its prey with dark mist.
The funny part about this mist is that “it will not always be night; the sun always finds a way to shine.”
But the danger is in being consumed by darkness and not lighting a touch.
So, I met someone new, dark, tall handsome and loving.
Charmed at first glance, romanced with a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolate. Being a hopeless romantic, this was a winner.
Fiancé” a man to whom someone is engaged to be married:”
The perfect love story.
Have you ever met someone, and everything made sense, everything they said to you was perfection.
Inseparable is an understatement of how these love birds where. Unlike minded but inseparable. Engaged within 4 months what could go wrong? It was the perfect love story.
We moved in together and created countless memories some sad, some beautiful and some toxic.
One year in was enough for a fruit of our love to be planted.
Joy filled my heart I was certain this was the perfect moment. I was so sure I confirmed within the first week that I was pregnant.
The happiest day of my life, so excited I couldn’t wait to tell my fiancé, now this happened at a shaky point of our relationship, and I was sure that this news would bring peace and we would celebrate.
Little did I know this news would pull us further apart.
No sign of joy from my beloved, no sign of interest whatsoever.
I cried myself to sleep that day, my mother said its just shock of the news “he will come around.”
Weeks and months went by, and he still didn’t come around.
Coincidence right!! with my rainbow painted fate.
Why would a seemingly perfect fate bring me such good luck.
7 months down the line, I had to find myself back in mother’s house.
A walk of shame with a gem on my finger. A sparkly gem of filtered lies and broken promises. A body reformed by the beautiful baby I carried inside me.
Oh, how hard it was to accept the pieces revealed to me by my glorious fate.
It seemed like a plague followed me of unjust circumstances and events, faithfully following me in every step I took through out this puzzle of my life.
The pieces came together so easily, each piece fell into its rightful place unprovoked, unmoved, a puzzle of my stained life.
Well 5 days after my mothers’ birthday I went onto labor, 28 hours of cunningly horrifying pain, the long wait for the birth of my princess was truly worth it all.
She was a symbol of perfection; a ray of the rainbow was finally shining my way. Oh, how everything suddenly made sense, the young girl inside me wanted to protect this child with all my being and any obstacle that came my way at this time was blindly shoved to the back of the room. Until the room was unfortunately full.
The is a saying “ignorance is bliss” but is it really?
Does everything that gets ignored simply just fade away or does it just pile up until it just overflows.
My wonderful fate happened to remind me once more that happiness isn’t really my thing.
You see at my happiest phase when nothing really mattered. When everything seemed just right. When all the wrongs had a silver lining of right. It all came back to me, that I wasn’t one to be overjoyed.
10 months in of being a mother to a happy child and having every ounce of hope inside my heart. I lost my precious mother. Stolen by what some believed to be a common cold, a government plot, a virus, you name it.
To me a monster that crawled into our lives overnight.
Grief “intense sorrow, especially caused by someone's death.”
The most horrifying thing about death is what it does to a family, especially if this is the first time you experience it so closely.
My mother’s death broke me, made me feel so lonely. It felt as though she always had this umbrella that she covered all of us in. And suddenly it was blown away by strong winds when she left and let it go.
It felt as though she kept collecting wood to keep us warm and with her gone our fire burnt out. It felt as though life made sense and now, now it was all just meaningless.
How was I to be a mother to my daughter with little to no experience? How was I to take care of my daughter and siblings with no clue whatsoever on how to even take care of me. I always had her carry me in and out of storms, I always had her to run too when I was cold and confused.
What was to become of me now?
Broken by the loss of my beloved mother, I could feel the mist getting closer and closer only this time it was stronger and thicker. It covered my face with a ray of ugly so much so I couldn’t look at the lady in the mirror and find reason to love her.
It was so toxic it overpowered my thoughts. I would silently sit in a room and affirm to myself that I am unworthy, not beautiful neither am I a good mother. I carelessly fed myself these thoughts and words until I believed they were true.
True enough to me, that is all I could see.
If anything, your mind feeds your soul what you feed it.
I stained my soul so much that I found comfort in this dark hole, I made countless “stupid” mistakes, over committed and not once did I think twice before making a “stupid” mistake.
