13,046 Days Alive
This ain’t a happy one, y’all. I am about to discuss sexual assault. Might wanna skip this one.
Spock is laying on me. I guess I’m giving off distressed vibes because he’s being a snuggle bug like he does when he wakes me up from nightmares. It’s nice but damn do I wish my pals were here and it was safe to just puppy pile on my bed, eat popcorn and shoot the shit.
It would be a hell a of lot nicer than where my brain is at now.
I opened Facebook tonight, like you do, and the first headline the newsfeed showed me was about the artist Demi Lovato being raped while working for the Disney Channel.
It felt like a literal punch to the stomach. Like, momentarily stopped my ability to breathe, clenched my heart and tightened my chest in a flash of mental agony.
Because, just for a moment, I was back in 2005, getting raped at Bunny’s house party. Or in 1999, being held down by a man twice my size and age. Or in 1998 or 2013 or 2006 or goddamned 1990. Because they all seem to run together, those times where someone decided that my body was their playground whether I liked it or not.
But then I blinked, and I was back. Back, sitting in the living room with Fen, watching Kitchen Nightmares and assembling figures from that one show. The one with gems and the little boy and-Steven Universe? The one that annoys me for the absolute lack of consequences for the main characters. But in any case, I was back.
Phantom pains made me shift in my seat. My wrists ached like someone had been squeezing them together, my throat burned, and I almost wanted to cry.
But I was back. Echoes or not, they suck. Flashbacks, PTSD, whatever the hell it is, it sucks and I’d happily take the chance to return those memories to whichever higher power decided I can remember that, but not my damned Hotmail login.
The title of an article alone was a sucker punch. And, knowing of Ms. Lovato’s struggles with addiction and mental health, I read the damn thing anyway. Again, flashes of an arm across my throat, knees pressing my shoulders into concrete of a basement in Yorkville, Illinois whatever the hell year Titanic came out. It sucks. And I’m sure I’ll have nightmares tonight because of it.
But it’s things like that, the flashbacks and struggling with suicidal thoughts urges that has me doing what I do. There’s a damn good reason I count every day alive at the beginning of each blog. Coz I feel like I’ve been living on borrow time since the first time I nearly committed suicide. I was 14.
Anyway, it’s not all doom and gloom. I’m still here. I feel like I shouldn’t be and that people don’t actually want me around. But I can’t trust my own brain because it’s a lying asshole full of brain gremlins and chemical malfunctions.
Anyway, snuggle face kitty and I are for bed. Take your meds, folks.
Postmark Wonderland 