It’s autobiographical… Part 1

Right about it. Write about it. Write about it. Write about it. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to anyone but you. Just write it all out. Because you are a writer. And you know the words. You know the words. Even if you cannot say them. They are all there. They say you are deep and intelligent and mysterious. But you know you are not. You know it very well. And whenever you deny what they are saying, they reply that you are undervaluing yourself. Whatever you do, you cannot win. That’s one reason why you keep things to yourself. Not to be mysterious or enigmatic; you just cannot share certain things. The words are there, but they have no voice. There is no fight anymore, no reason to be loud and to raise what is left of your voice. There is no reason to defend yourself. Not if no one knows. Or if they only know vague fragments of a past long gone. Long gone on the calendar. But very present in your mind. Every day. Day after day after night after night. And they tell you that you don’t know pain and that you don’t know hurt. They tell you that you don’t know soul crushing sorrow. But you do. You keep living with it. Every day. Day after day after night after night. And it never leaves your side. Even when it gets quieter, it never goes away. But what exactly is it? What makes breathing and being and existing so hard sometimes? The past does. The future too. Anxiety. Expectations. Experiences. You have suffered for a short time, and yet, it fucked up everything that came after that. It gave everything an acid taste. Normalcy. That’s a foreign word for you. You know many languages, are fluent in all of them, but normalcy – no, that’s a word you don’t know. Write it. Write it. Right it. He told you to tell it all out. He demanded you dig up the memories that keep scratching at the edge of your sanity. Insanity. He asked you to open your wounds and let them bleed on a sheet, saying that it would free you from the suffering. Can you do that? Can you reach into your soul and give these grey and forgotten memories colour? All you want is peace and closure. Why is it so hard? And why does it get harder every year? You are used to the silence, and you are used to being your only supporter. Nothing can change that. Not even the cold facts of childhood trauma. It’s not right. It’s not right. It is simply not right. You were the parent, aged 4. You had to take care of a sick mom, were emotionally blackmailed into becoming a submissive kid like that. Silent. Because in a house filled with adults an unwanted child had to be silent and invisible. An unwanted child – that you were. The words keep coming back again and again. You are the reason your mother is sick and was unable to take medication. You are a waste of skin and not worth the air you breathe. You should not have been born at all. It would have been better for everyone. You are too stupid to kill yourself. Yeah, those are just some things you regularly and repeatedly heard as a child and young adult. And now that you are grown-up, a middle-aged woman, they still haunt you from time to time. Because even now, after many many years, you keep wondering if those words were right. Back then, you did not react to the insults. You couldn’t. You weren’t allowed to use your voice or your words. It turned you into an adult who let’s other people step over you, and you are unable to reply to them. All it does is bringing back memories and it makes you shut down. You build walls to protect yourself. But inside those walls is a lonely place. And there lives that voice that keeps repeating those ugly evil words. Only very few people get the chance to remove a brick or two and see the fragile you. The one that is able to trust. The inability to trust is often mistaken for being cold or unemotional ,disinterested even. You are anything but. There are explosions of emotions rattling your walls regularly. Internal screaming matches with yourself. And a pain that is almost unbearable. During those moments, old coping mechanism lure you back in. Self-harm. Cutting, hurting yourself, watching yourself bleed. Self-sabotage. Not taking your meds. Drinking and smoking too much, eating junk food that makes you sick. If you had been shown some affection as a kid, you would have learnt to love yourself. But you the adults in your life showed nothing but disdain. You were not right. Not loveable. And there was no reason to show love or pride. Instead you took care of the person you would have needed most: your mom. You were told to take care of her daily hygiene and if you dared to speak up, saying that doing this or that was too hard, you were told you didn’t love her enough or that you weren’t trying hard enough. You were a small kid. It all started when you were 4. Helping her to the toilet. Getting her undressed. Waiting until she was finished. Helping her wipe and getting dressed again. Cleaning after her. Bringing whatever was not in reach. Meds included. And you didn’t understand. You didn’t understand why she was crying so much when you were doing your best to make her life easier. A bit later, to the daily hygiene of washing her, feeding her was added. Getting her in and out of bed. Preparing her meds daily. Meeting friends was out of question. Now you know that there were a couple of reasons for that. One: if you only saw kids in school you couldn’t find out that you were being treated differently. Abused would be the right word. But even now, it is not easy to admit it. Neglected. That’s another word. Because while you were helping your mother with her hygiene, no one ever told you that you needed to take care of your own body and your own needs too. You had to learn it on your own. In a house full of adults, no one taught you how to brush your teeth. Or to swim. Or to ride a bike. And a second reason why you were not allowed to have friends was so that you were at all times available to cater to everyone’s needs. When you were 8, you received an old battered radio. It became your first escape to that music world. Books were added later on, but you had to buy them for yourself. You did have a game boy though and you spent hours playing Tetris or Super Mario. Your only games. It didn’t matter, they helped in hiding from the world. You know well that these few unemotional words don’t explain the pain that still resides in your soul. It is just so very hard to find the right words to tell your story. If it was fiction, you would embellish here or there, but this is your real life. A life where when you had pneumonia (age 7), you were told to stop coughing because it was annoying. You had to lie down for two weeks and you had a fever for a long while. You remember that the doctor told the adults that they should have brought you in earlier, but you can’t remember their reaction. Just stop coughing already. It’s one reason why you hate people touching your ears, as stupid as it sounds. You ears hurt when you were ill, you had drops put in and it was not in an affectionate manner. However, an uncle got you books as a present, it was the start of your love for words and books.

❤️💜🖤💚💙💛🩶🤍🧡🩵

And then the mood changed for the better and the writing mood was gone… 1355 words… Unrevised… I should read and edit, but I don’t want to go through the emotions I felt when I wrote this piece, which is indeed autobiographical.