ZOE
I have been in a Psychiatric hospital for 7 and a half weeks, and today I am being birthed into reality. Today is discharge day.
25 years of suffering with chronic depression and life long abuse has brought me here.
I have no idea what awaits me, I know that two months in hospital will not magically erase the complex trauma I have developed.
I know the depression will not be gone, but the inpatient program I have completed has taught me invaluable skills.
I know that even though I might wake up tomorrow and find the weight still there, I
will find myself with feet planted on the ground equipped and prepared to fight for my life.
This is the start of a new chapter that is nothing more than a new chapter.
I do not expect success or failure.
I will take what comes and I will do my best to fight through it.
I will see the dawn with new eyes and allow the embrace of night to surprise me.
The only time I have is the time that is now.
All that I am is all that I am now.
I will allow the battle scars of my past to grace my body and remind me that I have travelled through and overcome the torture that lies behind me.
I will wear them with all the elegance of the woman I am.
I know my shadows , but today I know that I am not my shadows.
I have braved the vast ocean of nothingness and I will continue to swim.
Who knows what I may find.
I have broken my silence, my voice has shouted, sung the song of my suffering.
Today I know that I am breathing and I am no longer being drowned in the pain of intrusion.
This body is here and no longer the frame of a child being torn by the lusts of a monster.
This body is the vessel and proof of survival.
This body is here and now.
Being born into possibility, cut from the past, cut from the hopelessness.
Now I am.
Who knows what tomorrow will share and bring upon me, who knows?
I do not fear it now.
I might fear it tomorrow, but now I am here, taking on what faces me in this moment.
I might always still face the urges to self-harm and I realize that I now have the task at hand of learning to practice self care and giving myself what I need.
I must now start defining myself without the shadows of my past drowning me.
I get to do that.
I will try.
I think what I see now is that suicide is not the only option, there is always another way to try, and that trying is at the very least what I can do.
I realize today that I alone am responsible for how I choose to react to my emotions and experiences.
This is not a curse, no this is a blessing.
I have the power to choose.
We have the power to choose, and I know that perfecting this skill might take years, but knowing that we have this power to try is invaluable.
Trying is something we can do, and the possibility of hope is a treasure.
We might fail more than succeed, but that is ok because trying everyday to be only in that day is something no one can take from us.