Trigger warning! The gates of Mordor.

Sometimes I shut my eyes and see myself stood at the foot of a towering black gate. Its menacing just by its presents. Like something out of Lord of the Rings. I can be in two places. 

Standing at the bottom of the gate marvelling at its great width. I stand alone, singular, in the dry dusty desert one hand feeling the warm of the wood. The sun has heated and weathered the rough oak timbers  over time. This is my entrance to Mordor.

Whistfuly I find myself hovering somehow now miles in the air and I look over the gate. On the other side is mayhem. Orcs everywhere, slimy, ugly, angry. On the other side is noisy and intent on a fight.

 I hate what I see, I can't distinguish the noise of all the rabble. They are whipped into frenzy by thier own encouragement, I am scared of them.

Back down again at the bottom of the gate my heart pumps. looking  at the doors they are  tall, wide, huge, strong. For them to hold and 'contain' is easy. I reach my hand out again and feel the tar stained hulks of timber.

Then I realise that when the inhabitants of that world are pumped enough, the gates with be opened. My wants will mean nothing. Just like the film they will creak open, lumbering outwards to release a torrent of destruction, reaction. I will not be able to breath through the fear, I will be trampled without ever having been seen.

So to be asked "why dont you just face your fears?", makes me run. To be asked "why do you drink?", makes me fold in shame. To be asked anything without the speakers understanding hurts, I must hide. I will hide , I want to protect myself. I know the logic, I know the reasons to the gate, but nothing ever prepares you for how the stampede 'feels'.

Feelings eradicate logic, eradicate 'being sensible', eradicate who you really want to be. Brain triggered frontal cortex lame and useless. We must protect we must survive. That great gate crashes in an instance, the Orcs are free.

I Painted A Wall

This post will have spelling mistakes. This post will have bad grammer. But I write in desperation to get some of these words and thoughts out of my head, I am not in a place where it will make sense, so I will not try to.

Right now there is a consuming energy  trapped in my body like a crazy wooshing wirlpool. Its wirled through me over the last week building momentum and swirling relentlessly. Now my body is exhausted, so the energy has arrrived in my head. My body has given up. I try to filter and make sense, but its like holding back a crashing wave in a gale.

So how did I get here, what path has brought this 'manic crazieness' on me. What is it that now has voice after voice shouting at me, that has created suggestion after relentless suggestion. Why for split moments do I believe I could literaly create and do massive  crazy tasks, why am I told they would be so easy to achieve "just get started". Why when the enegry rams itself through my neck and swirls into my body, do I feel it kicking at me to try and get my exhausted frame to "stand up" and "get on" I feel shaky and bruised. Every now and then it finds a place to try and gather energy. In bed my feet twitch my arms stiffen, I find it lurking in my back and legs , making them stiff. In the end it gives up and travels back to my head.

It morphs once again into voices, sugesting advising, "they" now try to trick me, "They" make smaller demands in unison, smaller requests and we dive into the world of small of minute micro perfection. I react knowing they just want to trap me there so they can build back up to "being" and demanding the BIG. I give up, Ears ringing, thoughts flying voices shouting, songs looping over and over, "anything can happen" "anything can happen". I will not give my head over, I feel physically sick. It's such a fight. I will not move for fear to "creating a start". I freeze myself in self preservation.

So I come back to the question how did this start? How did I miss how on earth I got here. The answer, I decided I might be strong enough to paint a wall.

risky write

This is a blog I have written before, I wondered weather I should write it again. I  feel i much, because as the answers come to  I want to share.

Itt half term and I have been blessed with being able to go to a house by th esea for the week. aaai have been to this house many times so i was shocked by the upheaval in my brain. ai realised tough what had chaged was the age of my children an dth e circumstances of my life. Things had been pretty stressful for Zippy and I external issues leaned on our determination and chipped holes in our existance.

So although  was safe , we were as a family in one of the most peaceful places, my brain beacame unsetteled.

Within  ten minutes of arrival I had a migraine that squashed my head mececly I lost vision in one of my eyes and omy tounge went numb. Two days later I reppeared fragile and sensitive.

Then the crunch came on the third night I drank a bottle of wine and agrued with Zippy. What followed after that arguement still shocks me, within an hour The onlr answer that seem fersable to me was to die. Mentally I clocked up all th pills and alcahol in he house, what scared me evenmore was that I had no ability to 'feel' that my leaving would be anythig but posative for all. Zippy had gone for a walk to calm I was in the house alone. Myy heart and mind only had one answer and that was for me to leave, for me to free thoes sround me from my existance.

Hope pills

I just want everything to be alright! I want the effort of the fight to stop!! I want all those tired of the monotony of the struggle to have rest!!

I  sometimes get tired of taking the next weary step. I look to thoes who are equally as weary, in solidarity. I am grateful not to be walking alone.

We stumble, bump, hobble, forwards, sometimes with a smile sometimes with a tear.

But looping again I say. What I really want is for it all to be at peace. Those trapped, those struggling, those who just need to have a hope pill every day!!!

Yes a bucket of hope be poured on us all!! A bucket of joy drench and renew us!!! We walk, we walk, we walk, we carry, we walk, we walk, we carry, we walk, we walk, we walk!!!!

Thank you to all who walk and carry me, I love you, I appreciate you from, twitter to Face Book, from drinking tea in my kitchen to eating biscuits in yours!!! From north to south, Australia to Newcastle.. Hope be on you, joy be in you!!! Xxx

The old boxer

They look at the old boxer now, a withered and scared form.

They say they understand because they know he used to fight.

They say they understand the slanting nose and the creak of his previously dancing toes.

They look at the boxer, and they understand he used to fight.

But in his tired eyes there is never rest,

For although his body is past it's best,

From being asked to fight to young his brain is in a mess.

He fights now for his dignity and tried to hide, 

his confusion of humanity's seas and tides

One day like his body his mind to will rest 

Holding to account those who put him in the ring before his first christening was blessed.

But until that time look at him and say you understand he used to fight,

And then allow him extra time to feel the blessing of life.

Circles V springs. (tiny poem).

Sometimes it can feel you go round and round.

You hit the scenarios again and again, no ending to be found.

Round and round and round in circles trapped.

The same problems the same feelings The same crap.

No begin no ending, hang on a minute but what's that?

Time ticks on, moves you forward "oh I've been such a pratt!".

It was all a lie, a circle it never was, 

It was actually a spring

as time ticks forward; upward I cling.

Each time I face the same old same old. 

I face them anew!

With a days new safety in my belt and more knowledge like a welcome home brew.

don't forget the circles a lie!

It's in the spring of life you reside

Each time the same old problem comes around it's further up that coiled spring your bound.

You've moved another coil, 

meet the same old friend or foe.

Time can make the coils feel wide 

or squashed together 

But remember my friend in a circle you are not trapped! Not ever!....

 

Keep climbing. Keep moving.

Silence - Friend or Foe?

"MUM!, Carwen won't speak AGAIN!"

1993 aged 16yrs and two years into being  secretly being stalked by Frog Face. One of the ways I coped was to write a diary in which I would never acknowledge Frog Face. I hoped in some way that I could literally write Frog Face out of my life and forget.

14:08:93

...Last nights dinner was another "take the piss out of Carwen event", I have now got to the stage where I can just shut off. I can hear them calling me 'deaf and dumb' because I never answer or defend myself against their insults. It does not matter any more as nothing can hurt me {as when I was younger} when I  made myself oblivious to physical pain, I can now shut down mentally. I have found fighting back never works and you only end up getting hurt twice as much. As the verbal abuse keeps coming you know inside you have won because you remain emotionless......

18:09:93

.....You know sometimes you wish something drastic would happen and then 'something' would effect you and maybe you would be 'seen'. Then when something drastic happens to you your not sure if it is drastic at all. I mean one minute all you want to do is cry forever and the next its just not reality. You seem to be shrouded in a haze of numbing peace. Maybe this is what people mean when they say in drastic situation "you just get to a stage where the tears dry and you just have to live on as best you can"........

06:10:93

.....Oh I don't know everything is upside down. I want to scream and kick till I'm blue in the face. I want to be alone but I feel so inhibited when I am. At school  sometimes there are so many people around all talking and making the air clammy and hot. I put on my walkman but although it helps me to forget I'm with people - I can't.   I want to run away and be cold, to breath cold fresh air, to be in some quiet place where I won't see anyone and they won't see me. I would put on a song and dance without worry. I'd be in my world singing at the top of my voice and dancing circle after circle. The air is crisp and dry, the sky heavy with light. My eyes drink in the beauty of my world into which no one else can come.  I am  without the thickness and stuttering, I am without having to try and speak properly.  It's impossible and I want to cry, I cant be alone.

I have an aching in my belly I just don't want to 'Be'. I spend most of my time in my fantasy world were I can escape. The thing is I'm spending more and more time there. It scares me as I know its wrong but I just need to be there and although I'm physically not free there - I am. Is that wrong do you think?....

Having never told my dysfunctional family anything I had gone through, my behaviour to them was really hard to understand. Each of us lived and survived our own stories of coping. None of it was "normal" and we each lived extreme confusing unseen lives.

12:10:93

....Quotes from dinner tonight referring to yours truly.

 "I hate you so much x2"....

"I really passionately hate you, you are so annoying!"......

 they speak to each other.. "I know I get that feeling when I look at 'It'... 

"mind you I never speak to 'it' (laughing) "I'm glad I only have to see 'it' at dinner"...

I'm feeling a tad pissed off! well no that's a lie I feel nothing to them. I am nothing to them. Its stupid to think I ever will be. The thing that scares me, I mean really scares me is that I guess because of me having my own world of silence and the three months of hiding that I  did over the summer I think I may have forgotten how to cope. I mean I used to go a few days without speaking or seeing anyone. I could always integrate back when I had to, now though I am more paranoid than ever If only I could keep this wall around me for longer; I just get so terrified of people. Crowds are becoming another problem, I can only speak to one person at a time and I can't cope if lots of people are talking.

In class I freak if the teacher asks me a question or looks at me. The other day I had taken soup in a flask to school and it must have got smashed inside on the bus. During history I took a sneaky swig and ended up with a mouth full of glass. I couldn't do anything about it so had to sit there for twenty minutes for class to end and go to the loo.  I generally feel ugly and pathetic, I don't know what to do. I can't tell anyone as there is no one to tell. 

I'm writing this because on my journey into discovering, I used to get so confused until I realised there is a difference between people who have experienced a trauma and those that grew up within trauma and have had their whole character / world view grown in it. 

I hear people comment on how they wished they could go back to their twenties or teen years as if the years of age are robbing them. When people talk about 'getting back to what they used to be' prior to the experienced trauma, I used to feel like failure until I understood I didn't have anything to 'go back to.'  I have never felt robbed by the age thing and feel every year I live is better & more free than the last; I am relieved I'm here. Ironically it's not because the years have made me stronger, it's because I am now safe and it's in that safety I am able to finally shed my strength, shed my walls and know I am still loved accepted and 'seen'. #CPTSD.