Toxic

To the girls who are toxic with their own lives... you are not alone. When you have lived through so many traumatic experiences, they are always there. You wake up and go to sleep to them. They never go away. Yes, you heal and you learn healthy coping mechanisms. You even succeed at these mechanisms in sporadic spurts. You jump ten steps forward and twenty steps back. Panic attacks are a normal occurrence but these are not the kind of panic attacks that most people talk about. You don’t have trouble breathing. You have trouble forming a full thought. Your mind feels like it is in a war zone constantly and you have nowhere to hide from the speeding bullets coming at your head and aiming to take you out! Sadly, the smallest things can trigger an episode and an episode of the war zone can last days, weeks, or even months. Decisions... HA HA HA! Most of those turn out to be the wrong ones made on snap judgements and based around your current or recurring mood at the time. Then you must deal with the aftermath once you have jumped the gun and made what everyone around you calls a "stupid" decision.

Friends... well, we don’t have a lot of those because no one seems to understand our thought processes and everyone gets easily offended by what we cannot seem to control coming out of our mouths. We are mouthy, opinionated, and desperately seeking some form of justification for standing up for what we believe is right, just when no one else around us seems to think or feel the same way.

Alone... Oh, that feeling is always there. You feel as if you have to justify everything you say and do because everyone simply says to you that the way you view the world, think, and decide issues is "wrong." Self worth and self esteem are a continual battle because of the chaos in our minds. Second guessing EVERYTHING becomes second nature and it irritates everyone that you are so scatterbrained.

Sleep... If you are one of the lucky ones that stepped away from trauma with your sleep unscathed.... bless you! I did not. I sleepwalk, sleep talk, and physically act out my dreams on a continual basis, so much so that I cannot share a bed with anyone. It's too dangerous and I am too scared. Sleep only relives everything over and over again and people wonder why we are stuck in the past! How do you move forward when your body and your unconscious mind won’t let you?

Intimacy... I’m told people go in two directions when it comes to intimacy. They either don’t want it at all and have difficulty being intimate or they crave intimacy and physical attention like a drug. They have been lied to or questioned so many times that physical intimacy is the ONLY way to convince their brains that the other person can be trusted, can be loved, and might not hurt you.

Strength... Everyone sees us as so strong, yet we are screaming inside. The war zone never stops and all we are doing is seeking some way, someone, or something that will help it stop. If you are unlucky enough to have a photographic memory then not only are the memories there but they are in a constant moving picture show with every detail always there constantly reminding you of how you felt, how you feel, and what happened. It can and sometimes is all consuming

Employment.... Try keeping a job or staying still long enough to not let your paranoia or insecurities kibosh that job or relationship is almost impossible. Just making it through a day at work without something or someone triggering a panic episode in your brain is an accomplishment all on its own.

Fear — Some of us wind up fearing EVERYTHING... Some of us wind up fearing NOTHING. I am in between. My greatest fear is that the four or five people that I have allowed myself to trust, love, and receive strength from will turn out to be like everyone else and treat me like I am crazy to think and feel the way I do. I fear relationships and new friendships. I fear trusting someone else and sometimes I fear trusting myself.

Hope... Hope is the hardest because I fear hoping for anything. Most of what I have looked forward to or hoped for over the course of many years has not come to pass whether by my own or someone else’s hand. The let down is immeasurable and devastating each and every time and triggers a panic war zone attack in my brain. I don’t know how to control it and meds make you feel like a zombie.

So you live your life day by day looking for the positive and dreading the triggers that will send you into that war zone that feels like it controls you and not the other way around. Sometimes you gain control and life is good for a little while...

Just remember... to the girls who are toxic with their own lives... YOU ARE NOT ALONE!