Walk A Mile In My Shoes

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by angbrennil

by angbrennil

Go on have a go, try walking a mile in my shoes. How about just to the mailbox and back? You wouldn't be able to, wouldn't want too, can't. Only a survivor of childhood sexual abuse knows what it is like to walk in my shoes. Yes, each survivor has their own story, their own path they had to travel to become a survivor, but only they know the journey. My typical day's journey is as follows - I struggle to open my eyes but I know I have too.

Breathe. In through the nose and out through the mouth and repeat. Open them damn you, don't quit now!

I open my eyes. I am alive another day. It wasn't a bad dream. Now sit up and hang your legs over the side of the bed. Go on, you're not a cripple so don't act like you can't!

Now stand up and put the kettle on. See that wasn't so hard was it?

Don't worry about that sound, it's nothing. Just your mind making you think you are going mad.

Have a shower... No you won't drown, you won't take a mouthful of water and drown.

Go on open the front door. Just do it, don't wuss out now. Don't be weak, prove you are worth it.

Now remember it really doesn't look as bad as you think it does.

It is not a dark, foggy, foreboding forest littered with dark eyes and shadows waiting to pull you into the depths of no return at the slightest blink or hesitation.

It is all just an illusion. What you think is before you, is actually behind you. It is what you have just spent the last 3 decades traveling through.

If you turn around and look you will see that you have left the dark forest behind you, those eyes are only memories staring back at you. Those shadows are just feelings you had then. That fog is just the smell of the past.

Now turn back around and look at that front door again.

See it's life, just the way you left it yesterday. But today you are going to make it a little bit better. Just like you do everyday. Everyday life get's better and better. And just like yesterday that dark, foreboding forest is behind you and will never again block your way.

Even if it does, you now have a chainsaw to cut down those trees. You have a spotlight to rid those shadows of their hiding places. And those eyes... well they are only just the reflection of the light on the dew drops of your thoughts.

So I dare you to walk a mile in my shoes and you may just make it through the forest... You might just make it if you packed your supplies...

If you didn't then I am sure you will see the graveyard to the left of all the souls that just couldn't push themselves that little bit further. That couldn't see the light peering through the edge. That tried so hard but had no hand to drag them through the swamp. That let themselves sink into the bottomless quicksand just before the exit.

Now would you like to wear my steel-capped, unbreakable, death-proof, oxygen fuelled, I can do anything boots with my ultimate survival pack or would you prefer my pretty little pink peep-toe pumps & the matching clutch?

Cause I made it through in my pretty pink heels & my empty clutch!