WIshing Away Curve Balls

Bouncing Milk Crates

Typing away as I chewed on a long strand of my hair, I glance out the window. I watch the first signs of spring spreading out before me: Robins pouncing on spread of bird feed along my porch railing. I smile as describe the details of my mornings entertainment in an instant message to my husband.

-=

"What do you mean he flushed it down the toilet?" my father roared in their bedroom above us.

"Bubba flushed the money I took out of the bank to go pay the taxes down the toilet. He stated that he wanted to watch it go down the hole...," a anguish yell exploited from my mother's soprano vocals chords in a new pitch that I am certain that even angels could not replicate.

" That is complete and utter bull sh*t, and you know it! You always lie to me!"

"I'm not lying!"

Random thuds and crashing sounds succumb to another tantric set of battery shouts.

"Bull! if you are going to lie, at least make it believable! What did you do with the money!?"

Tense silence dragged on for an eternal few seconds before things began to rain down the stairs. Bouncing of the railing came an old grey milk crate that I couldn't out maneuver before it crippled my brother to the ground. His screech went unheard as I began to pull him away from the continued rainfall of random items that came barreling and cascading down the stairs. Blood dribbled from the center of his forehead where the corner of the milk crate had connected with the toddler.

I clutched him into a tight embrace and darted us through the front door of the house. Echoes of continued screeches continues behind us as I went to the neighbors house for a band aid.

=-

Shaking my head I refocus. I thought I was having a good stretch for a while where they weren't coming to me as constantly as before. There are times where these flashbacks not only just reoccur, but I am there again. and again. It never stops. Never goes completely away.

All I can hope for are symptom free periods where I don't hear things or see things in the past that cause me to disassociate from this reality and freeze to the negative emotions of an abusive past.

I am often viewed as heartless, but I have come to learnt that I am the complete opposite of that assessment. To disassociate is just another coping mechanism that I had achieved in order to survive the extremes that I was put through. Even for a citizen in the current era in the U.S. I had a childhood that would be similar to those in third world countries.

I know what it is like to live in filth. To be constantly hungry, sick, & dirty.

I know the fears of what will happen to me if my parents don't take care of my siblings.

What if the man with gun comes back again to demand being paid for the drugs or under the table loan that he gave my mother without my father's knowledge.

Being ordered to sneak things around, clean, and care for others.

Not attending public school unless it was permitted... Meaning I knew that it was safe to leave my younger brother with a fifty percent knowledge that no matter what I did would bring the impending doom of more abuse.

Living in a community that rejected me, and refused to stop what they knew was going on. Where the adults that were mandated to report and protect me also neglected their duty of the responsibilities to care for a child that needed them... Because it took too much. Too much to stand up for another when it took time, perspective, and courage to do so.

Who am I now? Someone who should be certifiably insane! But I am not. With God's help, and the nurturing of several hero's as I was a young adult: I was able to with stand the growing mental illness I battle. I am not a Schizophrenic, Bipolar, or Sociopath. I battle severe PTSD. I have the labels of Dissociative and severe depression to coincide as properties of the PTSD. 

My mind is often compared to the multi plane kind of thinking that occurs with the ADHD individual. I am thinking about multiple things at a time. I scan and view my surroundings and interactions quickly before I respond to the. Constant surveillance is a method to protect yourself. It permits you to observe the danger and be prepared for it. It also serves as the constant remind of the "curve balls" life has thrown me. I always wish away the curve ball memories... Don't we all?