I looked at myself in the mirror and an ugly, pinched, twisted hag of face looking back. It is not crippled by viciousness, ruthlessness, self-pity or hatred. My face has been scarred and made ugly by others ruthlessness, self-pity, selfishness, toxic shaming and viciousness. My face has been twisted into a crumpled mask from trying to stay small, from hiding the abuse and trauma, from absorbing the shaming and criticism. From the constant bullying nightmares. My face is scarred by verbal and emotional abuse. And from trying to keep my head above water enough not to drown in the cruelty. To ward the constant mental assault that convinces me I'd be better off dead. And so would others without me. Basically, as a therapist put it, I've spent my life trying to just stay alive.
And all this CPTSD is taking its toll. I've even developed systemic rashes that won't heal from broken down auto-immune system. In short, my defenses have been so battered that they're shot. I've been let down, betrayed, exploited, manipulated by people who were supposed to love and care for me, that I don't even know what it means to trust. I've been gaslit so often by people trying to convince me that I'm the perpetual problem that I believe them. I gaslight myself.
And because there is no way out, no recourse, no hope for someone who doesn't just have problems but IS the problem, I'm at my wits' end. I'm at the last station on the line and no one is waiting. No help has arrived. It's just the end. And I've run out of rope to tie knots in. I've let the gaslighters win. They're too powerful for me. I know, as I've always known, that they are right. I am the problem. Just by being. All the good things I thought I was doing are my imagination. The nightmares are reality and my life is a joke.
No comments:
Post a Comment