Thank you (((all)))). I really mean that with all my heart.

I guess what I have always been told and what I have always known is I just need to get over it and forget it. I often feel others think that is all that it takes and that PTSD is just something that easy. But nothing is right or okay. Not right now. Just because yesterday has passed, does not make it just stop or no longer affect me. It does affect me and is in more of a sense and reality than anyone realizes. And I feel really alone; maybe because it feels like no one else seems to get that or sees that I am hurting; maybe because I have allow myself to think in this way. I am not sure, but either way it comes back on me no one else.

I just cannot seem to ask for help or let anyone know, my own fear steps in so many times and people no longer seem as who they were as my mind can no longer separate where I may have been to where I am. And when you have already said something then why say anything again. I guess that is another fault of my own, another known that just really took a hold of me a long time ago, but it is also my assumptions often times too that are so often wrong, and just because there are those that already know does not mean they remember.

I really do get that but sometimes I wish someone would just remember, because besides not being able to let anyone know, often I sink away and feel it does not really matter. So crying in silence and going through it all alone last night is just all I felt I could do or even deserved. And I did. Right or wrong I don’t know. I guess that is why I am so hard to understand or to continue to be there for. It is not easy being my friend, or caring as often times I find I set myself up and because there is so many within that also often react in the only way they know or in the only way at that time they feel, it doesn't make knowing me easy or even worth it.

I have heard and read that for many people with DID, friendships or even close relationships, often times do not last and it is no wonder. If I am as confused and left out of my own known selves, out a long those I have no connection with inside, and life itself, then how can anyone else try to figure it out and not walk away. As frustrated as I get at myself, I can only imagine how frustrating and hard it is for anyone else at all. And I don’t blame them, what I feel so bad about is that they try and tried with all they had, they wasted part of their life that they cannot get back, that is what hurts the most and part of why I am so afraid to allow myself to really get close to anyone or to let them in.

The saddest thing is, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but to know me is one big hurt after another. And somewhere through it all, I myself am hurt too over and over again. I am confused anymore as to anything being about me, so I push it away from myself and do not allow any longer feeling what I have been through is anything and I should just get over it as I have been told so many times. My confusion and not understanding things is often times what is so hard, even though I try. When someone says something about that to me, I am terrified to ever go there again, and I don’t.

I know I have a kind heart, a heart that would help and give anyone the shirt off my back, especially those I care about and love, at least as much as I could or until I have been hurt or burned enough times I cannot do it anymore. I don’t hurt anyone out of intent or malice, and when I do something for someone it comes from my heart. But truth is somewhere it happens, even in my best efforts to try to not let it, it always somehow does.
And I cannot seem to look at anyone but myself as being the one in the wrong.

I honestly never learned to be a child or learn what children learn. Fault was something I knew well, and not something that I feel ever leaves me. I became an adult, never really being a child, always responsible and always had to know without being told what was expected, even when I couldn't possibly know—there was no choice. I always was the one to make sure my siblings were okay and safe even as a little girl myself, there or there as another part of myself, but not me.

Somewhere we all knew how to do that and did; I never learned to know or trust myself and I can see clearly why often no one else can either. As I look back now, I can still or often for the first time feel the weight of the world that was on my shoulders, something I am starting to see my own siblings didn't have to know or experience, didn't have a clue about, they had me or some part of me to carry that for us all.

But the truth is, what others cannot know is not on them, but again on me. And sadly I often cannot tell anyone, for I myself am lost to so much, even still of myself. For that the sorry that I could possibly say just is not and never would be enough. There is no way to pay anyone back that has tried or is trying, they risk(ed) it all on someone that is too damaged to understand or able to hold onto what never was and so often makes no sense now.

Right now, I feel so much of that child, myself, that I wish someone could understand that even though I need to reach out, I can't. Even though I should, I can't. And no I am not asking anyone to read my mind, I know they cannot, but why can't anyone also understand that being where I am--so close and so much as that child, I am terrified, just as terrified as I was then. Just because someone may be there, doesn't mean I am.

I often don’t know how to reach out, and my own fears stop me, even Fear herself. Maybe more, because back then I don't think I felt anything but the fear and terror surrounding me, I didn't think in the terms of asking for anyone for I knew not to and I learned that probably before anything else, and to be honest, I didn't even know that it was possible or anything I could possibly do.

My world was never a world of safe, and my aunt, the only one I knew loved me, was not often there. That is why I left myself, why I could not be me, why I am just now getting it given back to me after all this time; why I am DID. And it is said it is because I am ready, but I am not sure—but ready or not I do not get to decide when a memory hits me or when I am back where it all took place, back where time does not mean anything but a clock that ticked.

I cannot put into words what is going on or how I feel. To be honest I don't know how. There are just screams within that do not make an outward sound. And even though there are tears now, they are often hard to allow anyone to see. The deep, uncontrollable emotions rarely are seen and when they make their presence they disappear as fast. Not often, but at times especially when it is one of these times, they (my tears) try and even know to hide.

I really feel that just as much as I feel like a child going through this, my own emotions and feelings are doing the same and are in a different place just as I am. And I am no longer connected to even myself, and I don't even know or realize this most of the time. But for some reason today this is very clear and known to me. And just as I don’t always know that, I also don’t always know when I have left myself and another has taken over—even after the moment has occurred.

I am gone into that place where utter fear has stepped up and taken over, and often I am no longer the one speaking or reacting, not in myself as I may have been just the moments before. And while no one else can possibly know this, neither do I (nor can I until it is too late). And I am lost to anything happening and honestly do not understand what someone else may have heard within the voice that is no longer myself. And while I would not deny something happened and take the fault, for that is truly where it lies anyway, it hurts more than anyone knows when I do finally come back to myself.

And I often feel this tug or pull within of even my feelings and emotions trying to get away, for that is just what they did then too and why for so long I had none, at least none I was going to know or get to. And why those inside knew to pull them inside into hiding so we would not lose them forever. I often have said I wished I would have heard "I love you," and "I care;" but I am not really sure I ever wished that back then, and I don't believe I knew to or even what that would have meant, out a long question it, as beyond the pain and abuse those very words brought, then they were nowhere in my thinking or even ability to.

But back then, the only love and care I knew, was all I had to hold onto, and I knew that could disappear at any given moment or time, and I needed something to hold onto then however bad or wrong it really was. And as a child, if love is pain and hurt, and it is what you knew, you believe that is the truth and you also believe it is that way for everyone else in the world. Why would you wonder anything else or think anything else?

There would be no reason, and even though there was something different about my aunt’s love, it wasn't around very often, so especially as a child it would seem so much different than anything I knew. There is so much encircling her that I just cannot bring myself to talk about, but I do know one thing, I miss her and loved and still love her more than she will ever know.

Maybe that is why even now; sometimes what I wish for and what I fear collide and fight with each other. Maybe that is why even now, I am afraid to believe and hold onto what I want so much. But I also believe that I cannot hold onto those things because they are constantly getting buried and covered with the lies and the abuse that seems to come and then come again. I can dig myself back to the surface to feel it bury me all over again. It feels I constantly am digging, constantly trying, but it just does not seem good enough and once again, I feel I am failing.

The fact that I am struggling to reach out seems to mean I don't need anyone or warrant anyone, but it is not true. I do. Just as much as anyone else does, even more than I myself want to admit or believe. I am not always as strong as people think I am. And I too feel hurt sometimes at what others do or say. I somewhere just wish others understood that reaching out often scares me and it sometimes feels as though if I don't then no one else does either. Or again, maybe they do and I just don’t even realize it, but I often feel alone in that and like no one cares. My feelings and emotions are wrong. And whether that is true or not, I right now really do not know or have the ability to figure it out. But it still hurts anyway.

As much as I am told this was not my fault, that I didn't do this to myself, I am struggling to believe that. It feels it is my fault, and it comes back at you in so many ways ringing true all over again. It feels emotions and feelings really were something that was to not be and to be feared. And I still do. It feels it is not okay to have either, and so I pushed them back all over again, and hide them so that no one really knows.

The truth I know I am responsible for even what I don't truly understand or know. Being DID is so hard, and it is not something I would ever wish on anyone. As much as it is often doubted by some, it is much more a truth I struggle to live with each day I breathe. And as hard as you try, and as much as you give in that effort, it can be taken away just as fast. You can feel you mean nothing all over again. For every step forward, it feels often you take at least three steps back. And the sad truth is, those three steps back can feel like forever when trying to find once again the strength and courage to take a step again.

I don’t know why or where this all has come from, and it is about no one but me. I am struggling and am really so afraid, yet trying to take one step out of this darkness that was my life, this darkness now taunting, terrifying, and holding me silent and captive again. And I am so very tired and hurting physically, so forgive me if I said anything wrong or out of line—it wasn’t my intent at all. My thoughts have been running just as I have now for days but words too have been too afraid to heard or known. So I’m sorry this is so long—I didn't think it would be when I started to write.

dps