_edited.png)
It can happen to anyone
1.
29 years I was in a relationship, in fact most of my adult life. It’s taken me 5 ½ years to get back on track.
I feel so angry that he stole most of my life. That’s how it’s made me feel. It has taken so long for my brain to process what I had gotten into. A complete and utter mess to be precise.
Finding the right help is key to your recovery. A long slow path, but it works and helps when you do get the right help. The brain is a very complex organ. Not fully understood yet. So many chemicals in the brain and when off balanced it can have an effect on your day to day life. This doesn’t help when you have had trauma most of your life from a young age, which is what happened to me. I guess I fell into my relationship very easily. Needing someone to love you and take care of you, I was very vulnerable a way back then.
After time, you accept the lack of love and
2.
and help. It becomes the norm because that’s what I had most of my life. Always feeling alone with your thoughts. Not being heard. I’ve had to look way back in my life to understand why and how did this happen to me. (Wasn’t I nice enough, giving enough for you?)
You see, I never really got the help and support on my first breakdown which he also caused from his first affair. So, I guess in the end I was so easy to manipulate as I was so vulnerable.
I felt his rage at the end, my gut instinct was screaming at me. Yet I so believe his lies. Why wouldn’t I? I had known him most of my life, haven’t I? Well, so I thought. I loved someone who didn’t exist. Seriously. He was leading a double life and ran off with someone who he had met online playing Xbox games. That shock set my body into breakdown mode. Lost 2 stone in weight in 2 weeks. Couldn’t sleep, felt an immense pain my stomach and I
3.
was having nightmares.
After a hard battle for help I was diagnosed as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whow. Brain in total meltdown so vulnerable and alone.
But here I am today writing this hoping it helps someone who’s in a similar position as I was.
There is HOPE I promise you. I’m still recovering and my memory is bad but that’s the effects of PTSD.
Here is a little poem for you, hope it helps it did for me.
‘If you can’t fly, RUN
If you can’t run, WALK
If you can’t walk, CRAWL
And if you can’t crawl keep on
MOVING’
- Dr Martin Luther King. 1
Best wishes to you all. .C.x
‘It Can Happen to Anyone’, makes reference to Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s well-known words: ‘If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.’
Rising Free is a deeply moving anthology of creative writing by seven survivors who have used our services. It is about survival, healing, finding your voice and calling for change. The contributions in Rising Free are intended to share strength and voice with other survivors. It honours the power of survivor stories in creating change, both individually and societally..
Copies of Rising Free, are available by donation from our centre or can be posted out for a donation, plus £3 postage and packaging. Please email info@ercc.scot if you would like a copy.
