Sunday, August 21, 2011
THIS POST MAY HAVE TRIGGERS-PLEASE BE SAFE. MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE BEFORE YOU READ THIS. YOUR SAFETY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.

Haunted…that’s the word that best describes something I know…something I remember…something I still feel…the fear was so real it had a taste, it had physical components, it had movement, it was like a person, someone I would later learn that I would know forever.
It has no name…but it has sounds…it has no face but it has feelings, it has movement, it has life…it can’t breathe, it shakes with fear…it waits…it is fear personified…it is impending doom. It is a nightly visitor now…it is not my friend, though it is as close to me as a best friend should be. It is not kind or sweet or caring. It is not fluffy or cute or soft or warm. Its signature is simple–it qualifies as one’s total lifetime experience of fear in a one-shot dose.
A Shot…shoot…something I still remember, “click”…something I still hear…fear climbing up my back…grasping my heart…stopping for a minute to grab my throat, seizing my breathing. My hands are tied. My voice is in the off position. My eyes are trained on what I see in front of me…my mind thinks quickly about what will happen…too much, can’t figure it out…quickly I figure my sibling will be safe…I will be no more but at least he won’t have this memory…She takes me down memory lane… not mine but hers…she is such a sharing individual…she shares all of her hate, pain and anger on me, towards me. She gives it freely…no one could say she was stingy. She fills my small cup of self with all her dismal, dark, negative thoughts, observations and truths. I am lost in them….then in an instant…by the pull of the trigger….”Click”…she has changed my world forever…she birthed someone who would be with me forever, she birthed someone that would grow with me, Someone who sleeps sometimes but can be so awake, vivid and real at others. She gave life to fear in sleep—Nightmares…haunting.
The child she birthed…it only has one parent…my mother birthed it and it lives with me as if it is my twin. I close my eyes to sleep, to dream…to find peace and she is there waiting to share what she alone knows…the amazement for me is the realness, the details, the taste of fear, the feelings in my legs and arms…the “Click”…it is all recorded and plays like a feature film starring me. She is an amazing individual who holds vivid pictorials with sound, lights, action and real terrorizing emotion. What I have learned is that the memories of Nightmare child have always been there…but she was given full life potential that night. She may have only developed into a possibility or an occasional visitor prior to that night…the night that life was breathed into her soul….and she continues to fight to survive, though I fight often to silence her…
Haunting…that’s her name…she is my Nightmares…she is my pain…she is my fear…she is me not safe, she is me exposed, she is me screaming inside, she is me bleeding, she is me bruised, she is me scared, she is me being beaten, she is me being shamed, she is me hurt, she is me battered, she is me alone. She is me…that’s my point…the nightmares are me…they are me personified. They are me…and me is her…I struggle to get rid of her…but that’s the point…she is me…and I am her…I hope to find a way we can co-exist in a world where my sleep and dreams are no longer dues that I pay to be awake in a world that I struggle so hard to be me (without disassociating) in.
May God Bless all those who experience Nightmares due to being abused as children…the children in us deserve safety…the adult in us deserves a good night’s sleep…