Sincerely October

Habits

A miscellaneous chapter.

It's not your fault
Tell me about what happened. Tell me about how it makes you feel.
When someone who went through what I went through confides in me everything that hurts in the way it does feels worth it.
Tell me what they did to you, tell me about the dehumanization and anger and fear and guilt and sadness that comes with it, I promise I've felt that way.
I know what it's like to be treated like an object and then left for dead, I know what it's like to be used and unloved and disregarded, I want you to know that being objectified is not something that happens because you deserve it.
I know the anger that consumes every cell in your body, I know the anger that feels suffocating, I don't blame you, it's only human to want to hurt the person that made you question everything.
I know the fear that it will happen again, I hope that one day you feel safe.
I know the guilt that holds onto you, even when you are not at fault it's easy to blame yourself, but I assure you it is not your fault.
I know the sadness that comes with this, the heavy feeling in your chest when you realize that people like that really exist.
Believe more than anything that this is not who you are, this is not because you did something wrong, it is not your fault and it never was.

Moody
I can't see that the rain will stop pouring until it does.
When I feel sad I am overwhelmed with depression, I never feel a twinge of sadness I am elated or flooded with melancholy.
It is difficult to imagine feeling any other way than the way I feel right now.
During my periods of depression I struggle to find joy in anything, I am simply waiting until I can go back to sleep again.
During my periods of elation I am in love with everyone and everything around me, everything is my favorite thing, I find it hard to believe I could ever feel depressed when life is as perfect as it is.
I see the world with two contradicting pairs of eyes.

Real people
I am sitting and staring at the brown bedding underneath me.
These things don't happen to people.
These things happen in movies and novels but these things don't happen to people, that's just not how it is.
These things don't happen. This is not the way families function. This level of cruelty does not exist within people.
I tell the story and I'm shaking and I keep closing my eyes because I don't want to see his face because these things don't happen to real people.
These things don't happen, they never do.

Somewhere to live
The stories replay in my mind, they tell themselves over and over again.
I do my school work and I think about it. I go to sleep and I think about it. I call my boyfriend and I think about it.
The stories repeat themselves over and over again in the same way every time.
When I sit down and I tell someone what happened, when I tell them as much as I can get out of me, then the story has somewhere else to live.
Another person knows what happened, someone knows how I felt that day, someone who is not him knows what he did.

Disgusting
This is not normal. This is not how families treat each other.
I always knew that something about the way that he touched me was wrong.
I feel the need to clarify that I didn't like it, that I never wanted it, that I am not as disgusting as the things that have happened to me.
This is not what familial love is. Things like that aren't supposed to happen.
I used to feel guilty because in the beginning I fought, I screamed and kicked and cried, but that never stopped him, did it?
He never cared, did he?
I feel like I'm carrying the weight of an awful secret, I am not at fault and I am the one begging for forgiveness.