The memories I have vary from complete bliss to utter horror that cripples the soul a little bit more every day..
I know it has made me a bit cold and unfeeling but I wear the masks that hide it quite well. The abuses I have endured since before I was capable of realizing what it was, the traitorous betrayal from the people I looked up to the most, the churches turning their back on my family when things became the hardest they had for us..I remember a few weeks of my life clearer than most of the memories I've had over those few years. I think these have shaped me the most and have changed me from the person you think you knew me as to where I somehow made it today.
I used to be carefree, had my first true love to talk to every day, granted by distance.. I had some side jobs that gave me plenty of spending money for what ever I want.
Then I got the call..
My brother had drowned in the neighbors pool because they weren't paying attention. I never knew the severity of the situation until I was just a few minutes from the hospital. By the time I got there, the body was limp and cold. That will forever scar my mind and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't un-see that.
The following week, my first love left, amidst many family problems and selfishness. My remaining family was falling apart. Some very dark secrets in my past were revealed to me that changed everything I thought I knew about me.
I had lost hope. I traveled down a road which led me to make some questionable decisions. The people we had to rely on to keep us alive turned their backs. I was lost, confused. I wasn't really sure which was was up and which way was further under.At this point, I finally found what bliss could be had by trying to end all misery swiftly, eternally. The knives' sharpest edges digging into the skin felt pleasant. The massaging touch of a cold, steel barrel felt orgasmic. The more drugs and toxic items I could have pulsing in my veins, the better. I don't really remember how many times by then I had felt such a deep, wrenching, burning pain that left me doubled over, begging for death to take me. All I knew was I couldn't stand it any longer. Something had to change. I was starting to loose touch with reality. Dreams were becoming more real than my waking life was. Every day, I was becoming less and less sure of whether I was awake, asleep, daydreaming, drugged, or brought back deep into my mind where I could make up my own reality. I was very much insane. I was hallucinating, severely detached from reality, and i was unable to maintain a single personality, a single identity. I had assumed a different personality for each of the different emotions my body was repressing, refusing to allow to be felt out of fear of self termination.
I just didn't know anything anymore..
I'm not sure what but something made me call a friend one night when I had a rifle to my head, too overwhelmed by some recent problems. She put me on with who I was sort of dating at the time. That was what I needed to calm down enough to think straight for a little bit longer. After that, something seemed to of changed a little bit. Atleast for a while. Long enough for me to make a few right decisions and get some new things going.
After that, I had a career change, cleaned up my appearance and really fought to deeper hide that horrid pain that almost took me too far under to come back. I don't really know where this new found strength came from or how it started coming to me, but I was now dependent on it. It was the last mask I was able to use, the last crippled remains of a wall to my soul.
As the days turned to weeks, the weeks to months, I was able to start rebuilding my life. There were a great many struggles along the way but I was able to start building more walls to deeply bury the dark past in my life. Shape new masks to hide the many scars that have decorated my soul.
Here I stand, several years later and there is not a single day that goes by that I don't remember all of this, that I don't have an uncountable amount of "what if"s running through my head..
It took a while to be able to function normally, took extreme training to build myself back up. It took many lessons to be able to stay numb, stay above it all. It took giving up people I loved, people I trusted, people I grew up with. There were many things I had to bury so deep in my mind, I can't even remember them anymore. There's a lot of blur amongst those couple years of agony. My mind has done well at hiding and running from this torture.
Still.. Sometimes all it takes is a single smell, a few notes of a song, and a wave of emotions, a flood of memories, and a tsunami of life comes back, but only for a brief, overwhelming moment..
My heritage has done well to allow me to stay strong minded now. For my family's sake, I hope my mind stays this strong until they are long passed.
My mind is a vault. There are things I don't dare speak. I don't dare even think about them. The horrors of humanity I have witnessed. The evils in mankind I have been forced to see... None of this should ever be burdened to someone.. That is why I have built this fortress inside my soul. To lock away these memories and far too many more that I can never speak of.


If you have stuck around this long, let me say one last thing..

No matter how difficult the road gets, realize one thing. There is almost always someone who has it harder than you that is making their way through life still. And if you are on the bottom of this pyramid.. There is one absolute truth. All living things eventually die. And by all accounts practiced, after death, we do not remember the pain, the suffering we endured.. So why not stick it out? Isn't it worth waiting that extra little bit of time to see if things get better? There's always a chance you will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Is it worth it to take the quick way out and loose the chance to see the sun again? It can't rain forever. Just be strong. If I was able to make it this far and become somewhat successful with the complete chaos I have witnessed, I'm sure 95%+ of you out there having it hard can do the same if you try to. Know that there are others out there that have been through it all as well.