Afraid

Lately life has been so good… better than ever to be quite honest. I have be rid of my prying exes and started to create a new life for myself, away from my home town and my mother. Away from everything that ever hurt me in the past… and in the company of the few people that actually cared. So why is it, that now that everything has been going so well, that I am plagued with nightmares that leave me trembling and afraid? Why is it that I am finally doing so well, and my subconscious mind wants to tear me down again?

I have smiled more in these past few weeks than I have in the past 7 years of life. 7 years I hid from the world, I lost myself in my writing, and I never looked back. Then all of the sudden I am being drawn out again, my walls that I worked so hard to build are tumbling around me, and I am the one pulling them apart brick by brick. It’s terrifying, to be vulnerable again, for so long I hid behind snarky sarcasm and empty threats. Now it’s like the real me is finally coming out again. I am finally willing to poke my head through the murky waters and scream to the world that I am not drowning anymore.

So of course it is now that nightmares of long time fears rear their ugly heads at me, forcing me to shrink away from the person I want to be, plunging me back under the water. I reach for that satisfaction, that confidence that was there only moments before, and I cannot find it. It’s not gone, it will always be there, but it is only I that can reach inside my mind and pry it out of myself. It is only I that can be my own salvation from the pool I have been drowning in for so long. I have to love myself before I can save myself. I don’t know if I can.

I try not to regret any of my actions from the past, but when one has a past like mine it is hard not to do so. One person on here knows the full extent of the deeds I have done, and the past that haunts my sleep at night. Only one person knows why I sometimes feel sick when I look in the mirror. Only one person knows all of that, and can still think I am beautiful.

I have overcome so much, sexual abuse, drug addictions, fear and pain, abusive boyfriends, an alcoholic mother… I have made it so far in life with only my own fear to guide me and to hide me from everything I never wanted to become. I was afraid of myself, afraid of what I was capable of, afraid of every passing stranger, afraid of living the rest of my life alone… I was so afraid. I was afraid to wake up every morning with the memories of things I had done still fresh in my mind, still painful in my heart. I hid the fear with anger, and an angry demeanor that made most people cower away from me. It emanated off of me in waves, pushing any potential friend away from me.

I was alone, angry, and afraid. I thought I could deal with everything on my own, keeping my secrets close to my heart and hoping they were never spoken of again. And now I have told someone, not just the bits of my past that make me look like a victim, which in some cases I was a victim. I was also a villain, a monster if you will, driven by my own fear like a severely wounded animal. I lashed out at anyone that tried to come near me. I hurt the people I loved, and every night before I went to sleep I cried. Not for them, I cried in self pity.

I am not proud of my past, I don’t stand with my head held high when I say that yes, I was a druggie. Yes I drove everyone I loved away from myself, and I did it intentionally.

I thought for so long that I did not deserve love; all I deserved was the pain and the punishment that the men (and my mother) in my life gave me. I took it all in stride, and convinced myself it was what I deserved for the things I had done.

So why is it that now, when I am starting to loath myself a little less, that the monsters appear in my dreams? Why is it that I am finally not alone, that I can tell no one of the creature that plagues me in my sleep? The creatures, the monsters, they are all people of my past, people that have torn me down a little more over time until all that was left of me was a withering pathetic being I could hardly call a human. Sometimes the monster is myself, recommitting past crimes that I wish I could forget. Sometimes the monster is the man that stole my most precious gift from me, impregnated me at age eleven and lost me my mother’s love for so long. Not that she can love anyone but herself… not really.

Sometimes the monster is my mother, tearing me down piece by piece, telling me how worthless I am. I heard her say the words so many times… my own mother thought nothing of me, enough to tell me how much I was nothing. But she was wrong…

Sometimes the monster is Chris, my first real boyfriend that left fingertip shaped bruises along my neck time and time again. I cannot tell you how many times I thought I was going to die in his hands… how many times I wondered if that was how it was going to end, being choked to death by a man… no a boy that claimed to love me.

The monster comes in many forms, each just as terrifying as the next. It comes to haunt me, to plague me with my past. To hurt me.

I find myself waking up, sweating and cold, shaking and numb. I sit in a daze and then I write, and I spill my guts to paper. You see paper doesn’t judge, it doesn’t get quiet when you tell it your secrets, it doesn’t give you a look of disgust when it realizes what you have done. What you have become.

Maybe it is because I am finally starting to love myself again, that these dreams are trying to tear me down. Maybe it is because subconsciously I still believe that I am worth nothing and my dreams are trying to remind me of that. Maybe the past comes back to haunt me because it knows it can bring me back down again… I don’t know why they have come now; I don’t know why I can’t sleep anymore.

I crave sleep, my body is tired, and my mind is dizzy as I write this now. Yet here I sit, drinking coffee and trying to keep my eyes from flittering shut. I know what hides behind them.

But maybe… just maybe it is time for me to face my fears, and tear them down and drown them just as they have done to me for so long. Maybe it is time to take a stand and instead of hiding and cowering like a terrified child, maybe it is time to fight.

Maybe it is time for me to claim my life back… I deserve nothing less.

I deserve to be happy.