You have memories of a child…  you know now that child was you… you have felt his pain and you carry the marks on your body… on the outside and the inside…  Some didn’t leave a mark on your body but are instead engraved on your mind…  You’ve spent years in therapy…. seen at least a dozen or two of medical professionals throughout the years… to help you put the pieces of you together… and to learn make sense of yourself… or how to survive the crippling emotions and memories from taking you under….

You’ve learned a great deal about yourself… there’s no doubt about that… and when everything seems hopeless you’ve kept on going no matter what… even at times without really knowing how or why…

Sometimes your mind doesn’t play along with what you’ve learned… and you try to hide what’s in there… Sometimes it’s intentional… sometimes you don’t really know what’s hiding in there…. or you can’t use words or any other method to get it out of there… and you’re back to the past… all alone… with her….

You know she doesn’t hate you… not really… at least it doesn’t always feel like she does…  You know she is afraid…  and there are times when you can see that she’s just as afraid as you are… She believes what she tells you is true and you as a child can’t do anything else than to believe her too…  because you are too scared of “it”…

When you have been beaten and tortured for a while this is just yet another way to hurt you to punish you for just existing…  When “it” has been a part of your existence…forever… you don’t even realize its wrong… not as that child…. “It” is your existence…

At thirteen you only exist because you feel your body…. your heart is still beating and your lounges still draw oxygen… but without pain… you are afraid now….  When you need to go out into the world… you put on a mask… a front…. a version of you for others to see… a fake smile, a fake happiness ….even fake love and compassion when needed…  but on the inside you just don’t care…

You are still always afraid to slip up and say the “wrong thing”…. or that someone will see behind your cloths… or touch you in the wrong way and you might lose control and they would be able to read your pain from your expression…. or you would cry out in pain….  spontaneous reactions of what you were feeling on the inside….

You have the chance at seventeen to escape… but you don’t… The “it” has distorted your mind… you don’t know that at seventeen… but you do “what you have to do” and you don’t talk to anyone about it…  and it never occurs to you to escape… and never go back…  All because you believe you can’t exist without pain… you need it to survive… you need it so others can survive…

She is gone now… and although in your confusion you kept “it” going for many years afterwards… too many years….  or is she really gone?  Her body may be gone… but you know her mind sits in the corner of your mind…   Most days you don’t notice her sitting there… but when you do you feel you are not safe… It’s not that you are afraid of her coming to life and hurt you… you are afraid of your own mind… and what it is capable of…. what it has shown in the past…

Sometimes you go back there without realizing it….  and you can feel the child… the pain, the terror and his acceptance…  you can feel how he accepts it in spite of the pain…   but yet at the same time you feel you need to rescue that child…  to hold him… and to show him real love…    take him where there is no pain and no fear…   but you realize there is no place without pain or fear…  not really…  All you can do is to connect with the child… have him share his strength to survive with you…. Join forces… and together you can do anything…