The battle of existence

The boy who didn’t exist.

There was once a boy who didn’t exist. He existed physically; not emotionally. Wasn’t allowed to feel or share. Wasn’t able express his wishes or needs. It wasn’t safe. Wasn’t considered normal.

He was broken down time and time again ensuring that he would remain non existent. He only was, when he provided for others. He only was, when he gave himself away. He only was, when he surrendered his body to those asked for it.

His prime existence was when he gave over his existence to other and didn’t exist for himself.

Years went by and this boy became a man. Yet this man still had that boy in him. He now became a man that didn’t exist. Naturally, he continued that cycle of giving, giving and then giving some more. He needed to do that in order to be, for if he wouldn’t, then he would be non existent.

As time went on and living a life of non existence became too painful, He was forced into healing. He began shedding the non existence , layer by layer. It wasn’t easy. He was beginning to see existence but the non existence didn’t want to leave. He was too afraid to let go. He felt that existence was selfish and wrong, and so existence needed to fight with non existence and slowly existence was born. It was small and fragile. Afraid and unsure. Yet existence began to exist.

The battle was not over. It was and is a daily battle. My non existence self wants to win me over and comes up with every tactic in the books to win. He has so many proofs that he’s right. The voices of all his abusers. The proofs they brought and feelings they’ve instilled. Non Existence was stronger, older and more experienced and so the fight is a hard one.

A trigger comes along, throwing me into an emotional flashback and I begin to truly feel non existent. I don’t deserve. I don’t belong. I don’t matter. The non existence takes over and completely shuts off the power to supply to existence.

Eventually after it passes, existence gets back some power and tries to regain control of this mess despite being wounded and bloody.

For those of you that understand this, can understand the intensity of our inner challenges. It’s not simply a battle of whether to eat that extra peace of cake or not. It’s our very existence that’s at stake. Fighting like hell to remain existent, despite being bombarded with a massive attack.

For those that don’t get it, please believe me. Please trust me and the many others like me who suffer from complex ptsd. If we don’t show up to an event or even if we do but we look a bit out of it, it’s because we are in the midst of an all out war. If you call us and we don’t answer, we are not ignoring you. We simply don’t have the strength to talk. We are not overdoing it or looking for pity. We are not being bitter or giving excuses. We are waging a war and our small brain is the battlefield.

Please give us time. Give us the space we need. I promise we didn’t ask for this. If there would an easy way out, I swear we would take that route. Yet being that our non existence was so deeply planted and nurtured every day in our childhood and sometimes into adulthood as well, it takes Hercules effort to peel away at the very many, deeply routed, beliefs. We will get there one day. We will. I promise we will.