C-PTSD; pt 2

TW: mentions of self harm
Originally written: April 10th, 2022

It’s exhausting

having to

consistently convince

my body of its own safety.

Having to convince it

that the shadows are just shadows,

that the men are just men,

that every loud noise isn’t the end of a life,

it’s exhausting living in a body

that is trying to protect,

to preserve,

but in that act,

is destroying,

is crafting its own wreckage.

It is my own self-defence

that has caused my self-destruction.

I am the cause of my own undoing.

I am the cause of my own demise.

And I want nothing more than to rest,

but the panic follows,

I fall asleep to the turning of my stomach

and wake up to the racing of my heart.

That’s the thing with PTSD,

it hurts so long that you adapt,

But then when the threat is no longer there,

you become it,

You take it it.

Let it flow through your veins,

Let it become apart of the recipe.

Some project that harm externally,

letting the stench take over,

starving or

cutting themselves,

or push it onto the ones they are closest to,

dumping their hurt into the nearest empty body bucket,

continuing the cycle,

letting the debt build,

leaving their hurt for the next person to clean up.

But I refuse to let my hurt leak out.

I will hold it in til it tears me apart.

Until I rot.

I am trying to release it.

Rewrite, and rewire,

but the disease is in deep

I have grout in my veins.

and I can’t flush it out.