Tag: Trauma

Alone

What to do

When you’re empty

And alone

Just skin and bones

Willing to be reduced

To less.

I confess,

I feel useless

The grave

Speaks to me still

In words only I understand:

“Take my hand,

Rest a while.”

And I smile

At promises of peace

That leave me

Uneasy.

The pain in stranger’s eyes

Calls to me

In languages

Only we can utter.

Opens passages

To worlds

Only we

Have ever known.

Parched

Rivers plan their course,

Following my quiet footsteps.

But I am a broken force,

Dragging along the shattered remains of what’s left.

I thirst.

Rain throws itself from the skies

To slide down my skin,

My lips refuse to part.

Only my eyes join in—

I weep.

Waves rise up and crash hard to reach me,

But I climb the highest rooftop— Scarred.

I’ve drowned before.

Each inhalation of water teaches me,

I’m cursed.

Life sits peaceful as an unstirred lake,

Fills me to my brim with flavourless, tepid, nothing

Numbs me till I cannot wake.

I long for it to shake, earthquake… something!

I sleep.

…And I dream of cold well water swallowed and streaming into my feelingless soul.

I shiver

Fear

Fear born within my stomach

Stretches out its arms

Tiny little twigs

That utterly disarm

It grows beyond its boundaries

Pulling at my chest

Paralyzes me for naught

So I can never rest

It pulses when my heart pumps

It inflated when I breathe

When I move it shudders

But it never leaves

It shakes my mind for thinking

I tingle when it laughs

And anywhere I try to go

It stops me in my path

Anything that calms me

It calls the enemy

Threatens my existence

Unless I swear to flee

So here I sit in silence

I stare but cannot see

Feeling naught but emptiness

Just my fear and me

The New Antidepressant: Sex

I got off the antidepressants about a year and a half after starting them. I was angry to have been put on bipolar medication with so little analysis and counselling. Though several friends I had confided in had agreed that it was a correct diagnosis, I denied it.

I didn’t need the medication anymore, I’d found the key to the happy hormones I lacked: sex.

After 20 years of having no interest in physical contact I joined Tinder, met a stranger and lost my virginity to him on our third time meeting. I’ve heard that people who’ve experienced trauma end up forcing themselves to relive it over and over again.

Sex became something I needed. Without it I would spiral into depression and experience wild mood swings. Yet, I did not remain with any of my partners long.