Surviving

     I had the word "SURVIVOR" permanently etched in black on my right calf years ago, before I even truly understood the meaning of the world. At the time I was in the midst of my hundredth attempt to recover from my anorexia, something in reality I was years away from. I had just turned 23 and thought the world had handed me the hardest cards it could...growing up with an alcoholic mom and absent father, not able to go to school, constant stream of hospitals full of tubes making me eat and not bleed, being raped, mom dying, being homeless...to highlight a few. I still very young and very stupid, I hadn't survived anything, surviving requires pulling yourself up out of rumble and moving on...I had merely kept breathing.
     It was only a few months after I got that epic word inscribed into my flesh that I became the exact opposite of a survivor...a coward. It had all become too much for my brain to hold, I was being told what to do from all directions, told what to believe from all directions, and I believed in nothing for myself. The world had won and I wanted out of this game for good, so needless to say this "SURVIVOR" pushed three bottles worth of very powerful pills down my feeding tube into my small intestine, and stopped breathing in the ambulance to the hospital. I didn't wake up the next morning because of a will I had to live, I woke up because a friend, a team of ICU docs, and God forced me to keep going. I was a stubborn toddler during that time of my life, having to be watched all the time because the first chance I got I was slicing my flesh as deep as possible and pushing lethal doses of the meds that were suppose to be helping me into my body. I didn't wake up everyday and bravely try to take it on, I woke up and stomped my feet spewing venom on anyone or anything that tried to help me, all the while crying how I couldn't do it anymore. I had my own hypocrisy staring up at me from my own flesh, and I was too far gone to even know it.
     Anyone who knew me during that time of my life will tell you that I am a completely different person, even now in some dark times I am not that girl from nearly five years ago. I don't just mean my behaviors are different because sometimes they aren't, I mean that I literally look and talk like a different person. A friend told me back then when you looked into my eyes there was nothing there, when you spoke to me it was obvious I didn't care to hear you, and really the only thing that made me alive was the fact that I had a pulse (which was debatable at times). I literally don't remember whole weeks from those times, meeting people, and doing things. I spent my time medicating, cutting, and restricting. By that time I had already been diagnosed with the gastroparesis and was physically becoming as much of a mess as I was emotionally. If you think I was worthy of the title "SURVIVOR" at that time I am going to have to call bullshit because you are either lying or stupid. It really is okay to admit the truth because I know it, I was a shell waiting for a chance to off myself, or praying whatever God I thought I believed in a the time would end it all...I wasn't even a person anymore.
     It was during those days that I met the man who become the father of my child and husband. He somehow saw past all the crap and found that somewhere inside that shell there was a person who was trying to survive, and he reached in and ripped her out. Seriously, best way to describe it because he brought a fire to my eyes, to my heart that I hadn't had in years. He didn't go away when I threw as much venom on him as I could...everyone else had retreated before even coming close to that. He would push, I would push back, and he would push harder until he got what he wanted...emotion from me. I had been running on autopilot for so long that I really didn't know how to feel anything, feelings scared me, which is why I always bled, starved, puked, or swallowed them away. Suddenly, I was alive and I could feel everything...it sucked, but a necessary event. Once I came back to life it was time for the decision that only I could make, Josh did the CPR and shocked my heart, but you can't will a person to fight if they don't want to. It was at that moment I made the decision to survive no matter what was thrown at me...no more pills to numb me from reality, no more existing...time to be what I thought I had been that day at the tattoo shop...a "SUVIVOR".
     Making that decision has gotten me to where I am today. Suffering has continued to be a very real part of my life, and I have felt that darkness emerge in me again, that need to give in. Josh and I have been through more together in five years than most couples will see in their lives, and we are both still going. I no longer allow the world or people tell me what I believe...I know where I stand with God, and it is personal. The years with Josh have taught me that the will to survive is the most important thing, and God built Josh for survival, who showed me I was built for it too. We have been kicked down as far as we thought we could go and then kicked again, yet here we stand. We have been the target of monsters set to kill us, and yet no matter how deep the wound we rise back to our feet bleeding, but surviving together. Things will never be easy for us, Josh and I were dealt the same hand full of dark cards, but the thing is I can accept my fate now. My suffering and tragedies have all had purpose, my survival has a purpose, and I understand that now.
      For me, most of my suffering has been used to teach me how to help others, but all of it has been for my son. Between Josh and I we have been through enough for ten lifetimes and learned a lot, but most of all we have survived. Our son was a miracle, ask anyone, all the doctors will tell you it was never suppose to happen and him and I were never going to survive. They painted a very bad picture of my child's entry to this world, an even worse picture for the nine months leading up to it, I would need surgery, bed rest, pain medication to tolerate the nutrition being pumped into my gut, and my son would be born weak and addicted, if not dead. They were right about the surgeries, the bed rest, the meds, the horrible pain I felt for those nine months, but they underestimated the will I had to survive and the will that both my husband and I had given to our son to survive anything. Despite the predictions of tragedy written in my file by all the "experts" we both survived those nine months and he was born not only strong, but completely free of any medications in his system. He did not spend one day in the NICU, let alone the weeks they had predicted. That little boy might be one of the most hard headed, strong willed children on the planet, but he is also the strongest kid I know, and I am certain that God has used all the tough times Josh and I have survived and continue to survive to prepare that tiny miracle for something in his life.
     You must earn the right to be called a "SURVIVOR" because simply still breathing after a tragedy does not mean anything. It is surprisingly easy to retreat inside yourself and give up, to will yourself dead because once you believe yourself dead than it is only a matter of time before you flat line for good. There have been plenty of times during these years, esp the last few months that I have felt like being done, willing myself to the land of the dead and waiting for my physical body to follow. There have been days and even weeks that I have essentially give up over the last months, but then I remember that I have lost the right to make that decision, I must live true to the ink in my leg because it isn't about me, none of this is about me. I have this little boy that looks at me everyday and depends on me to grab his little hand and lead him forward in life, to protect him from the real life monsters of this world until he can learn to survive on his own. There is nothing easy about surviving, absolutely nothing. When people say, "At least you survived"...I want to rip their heads off, no one wants to survive horrifying things, not meaning they don't want to be alive, meaning no one wants to go through it, who wakes up and wants to be raped, be sick, be broke, the list goes on and on...no one. And, there are people in this world who will never go through anything close to what I have been through and people who have gone through things I couldn't even imagine. When I tell people I am surviving that isn't something I want pity for, it is something I think we deserve respect for. Do not ever let anyone make you feel weak for being a survivor because earning that title meaning that you have seen hell and managed to claw your way out of it despite being pulled back down millions of times. Survival is a choice because you can always decide to let whatever happened to you swallow you whole rather than come through it...make the choice to survive because you deserve it.
   

The Monster

     Another night she finds herself alone in the dark again fighting all the things that keep running in her head. Every noise keeps the girl on edge despite the TV or music playing to distract, every creek of the old house causes her to freeze...the monster has come back. She knows logically he is gone, but the memories never fade. When the sun is out she can hide it, she can smile, had the fears that are constantly knocking her back down, but when the darkness comes she begins to crumble.
     It has been nearly a year since the nightmare began and the girl can barely look in the mirror. In her eyes she is to blame, why didn't she see the truth before it happened, why didn't she fight harder, why did it so long before got help to plan her escape, and the "whys" just keep stacking up. That pathetic girl in the mirror deserves the punishment that was wrongly given, an innocent sits in a concrete hell while the monster roams freely to devour more girls just like her. If only she hadn't been such a broken person when the monster emerged the nightmare could have been avoided. The monster craves the bruised and broken...targets easily consumed. Her reflection shows her what no one else can see and she hates it.
    The girl lays still in her bed as the hours tick by fighting the exhaustion begging her to sleep. Sleep has become torture to her, when she closes her eyes the monster is in control again. In her dreams she fights to escape, to push the monster away, but no matter how much she fights the monster consumes her. Her screams eventually being her back to reality, her heart is racing as her eyes rip open leaving her in pure terror until she realizes she was dreaming. Chemically induced sleep only makes the dreams worse, fighting to get back to reality becomes hell...the medicine won't allow her to wake. Staying awake is her only hope to stave off the monster coming back to consume more pieces of her. Asleep every detail of her imprisonment is relived in vivid detail, all the ways the monster fed on her all the fears of not knowing what would happen next.
     Her home has become both a prison and a sanctuary, everywhere she looks she can only see the places and ways the monster broke her, where it slowly chipped pieces of her away, breaking her like you would a dog. It was the monster's plan from the beginning...to seek out the damaged prey, lure her in with a mask of kindness, begin slowly breaking her down until she obeys, and eventually the mask rips off and the monster has it's prey under total control...she is obedient fearing the punishments that will be handed down if she strays. As she looks around the room all the signs of the monster's plan are more obvious than ever, how could she have missed them? Despite being her prison the girl's home is the only place she feels safe. When she ventures outside all she can think about is seeing the monster, every aisle she turns down at the grocery store her heart quickens thinking this will be the time she sees it standing there. People think she is fine, she smiles and makes jokes, but they will never understand how she feels...how it all comes a part as the sun sets.
     She wonders if it will ever stop, if one day the monster will no longer rule her dreams, if she can ever be free from this, will she ever stop hating that girl staring back at her from the mirror? She feels trapped in her own body running on autopilot to keep everyone happy yet still falling short. No matter how many times she is told it isn't her fault she can't let it go, people just trying to make her feel better...she allowed the monster into her life. Everyday she has to push herself through, going through the motions hoping that someday she will be ok. Her protector won't abandon her no matter how much pain she has caused him, when she spews venomous words to push him away he refuses to budge. She longs to be better for him, to stop jumping when moves to hold her. She can't understand why he loves her after what she did while under the rule of the monster, how he can even touch her. She prays someday she will be whole again, she knows there will always be visible cracks where she was pieced back together showing the world that even though she was broken she was strong enough to pick up the pieces. She longs to prove to the monster that it no longer owns her, so for now she takes the days and nights seconds at a time just trying to survive.