There’s this feeling you get or at least I get right before a flashback. It’s like a pressure build up that starts to hum, I can feel it throughout my body and as the pressure grows it becomes a vibration that rarely goes away. It stays as a constant reminder that soon enough I will be in a ball on the ground reliving the most horrific night of my life. Except this time the buildup is going on over 3 weeks and I’m actually praying for it to come just so I can feel normal again.
I know the day it started and why however I don’t know how to make it stop plus a very emotional 3 weeks where anything that could have gone wrong did, didn’t help. I’ve tried everything that I’ve been taught over the past 4 ½ years and when I’m in it those things tend to bring my mind to the forefront but not my body then other times I let it take me, hoping that this will be it and the pressure will go away. I look around me to see if anyone notices but it seems I’m pretty good at hiding it except from HER, she can tell and she asks if I’m ok and I lie and say yes only because I don’t know what to say. Maybe if I told her no and tried to explain she would tell me it happens to her too and we both wouldn’t feel alone… She asked me the other day about a box I keep in my room. To anyone else it looks like a box of crap and could have the potential to become a hoarder but it’s my you box. Filled with everything there is from that night in 2009 and on. I’ve filled it with memories of mission events, therapy milestones, newspaper clippings and cards. I look at her and I say that’s my you box filled with everything from the bad night on. She looks at me and wants specifics and I say there are some cards in there you can read if you want. She asks what kind of cards and I tell her about how people from all over the country wrote her notes and cards and sent money into the Marley Fund for her. She likes that idea so she sits on my bed and I dump them out. She picks up one after another and starts read, stopping at times to ask questions or struggling to read cursive but she seems to enjoy it and I realize this is a step in the right direction for us but I can’t help but think when will she be ready for the rest of the box. After all I’ve saved everything for her, just in case. I realize at times I’m holding my breath as I watch her read, she turns to me sees my face and comes to me. She says are you all right mom? I say yes because I am but she sees something most people don’t when they look at me, she sees the truth and looks me in the eye and I lie and say I promise I’m ok. We talk about my favorite card and people who send cards that we didn’t know and after the fact got to meet them, she said this person wrote that you should have taken me to Disney World and gotten me ice cream to make me smile again. I said yes a lot of people needed you to smile again but I chose to get you Strawberry with the money. She thought about it and decided I had made the right decision. Recently night has been the worst for me, lying in bed and hearing sounds my apartment makes and feeling the hair on my arms start to tingle, my heart rate accelerates and I go black. I’m in my hallway in Taylor walking towards the younger ones room because she’s crying. I feed her and change her diaper; the task takes me 15 minutes. 15 minutes and I have no clue what the hell is happening 15 feet from me. I mentally beat myself up in these moments. Then I continue on down the dark hallway with white walls, family pictures hanging of fun times. The house is quiet except the sound of my own feet walking on the carpet then I get to the door and try and turn the handle. I jump off my bed and race to the girl’s room in that moment just to see them sleeping peacefully. I watch them and try not to cry, I turn and walk back to my bed and sit there and stare at the box. I haven’t gone in it yet because I know where that leads but I look none the less. The apartment makes its noises and I still myself and talk to myself to not get up. Everything is alright, it’s just the 3 of us here but I can’t not get up for fear that I’m wrong. I do this all night long for 3 weeks now. I’m tired and emotionally exhausted and I know that adds to it. I’m sharing this now in the hopes that getting it out of my system will help me and maybe help others that know exactly how I’m feeling.
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