Recollection

six | phase one

Song: Ruelle- Game of survival

"Your trauma made you stronger"

This was what the therapist at the rehabilitation clinic back in New York City.

I wanted to object to that but I had to play nice and dull my objections to a minimum in order to get out of there quicker.

my trauma nearly destroyed me it didn't make me stronger. It gave me nightmares and stole my voice, it gave me destructive coping mechanisms and panic attacks. it made me feel deeply unloved and undeserving of love. It took my own strength to face my trauma and tell it that it would not win.

I got help along the way too but it wasn't always that easy.

Needing help and accepting it were two totally different things.

I was put into terrible situations over and over and over again. That was not my fault and I learned how to survive despite my trauma Not because of it

The days weren't always bright and the people around me wouldn't understand.

But that's where I was wrong.

The right people would understand. And they would help in ways I didn't even know I needed.

I thought I had everything Back in New York. With Asa, Rosalyn and Imani. Drystan and Cassian came after but I lost Imani on the way.

I thought that that was it. Yet deep down I knew something was missing. Instincts perhaps.

And then my family came and evaded my life and exploded like a bomb. So many of them. All of them. Each and every single one in different ways they left a mark On my pieced-together heart.

And then he came. He was the one I feared the most. He was the one who would see me naked. Not without clothes. But he managed to strip my outer layers and reach my soul.

Atticus saw me.

And being so far away from all of them drove me crazy.

I needed them in my life and only now being miles away watching the Greeks did it down on me.

I needed to hurry and get back.

I just hoped they would forgive me when I came back home. Because I knew if I hurt this much. I could only imagine how much this whole situation must have hurt them.

But living a life in fear and watching over my back at the mere age of nineteen wasn't a life I wanted to continue living. I wanted to be free. And I would get that. But I had to be methodical about it. I needed a plan.

Sacrifices along the way we're necessary.

And something I couldn't evade.

I could only just hope for their acceptance and forgiveness once the time was finally right.