Felt From a Place Called “Within”
There are certain things that are felt from within. Be it happiness or something you’re sad about, when you feel it from that place called, “Within” it squeezes your senses and leaves you in swaying emotions.
She had a lot of such emotional moments — mostly from the corner of sadness. But they weren’t somehow effecting her anymore. She had images in her head from the past — about her parents, what happened between them, how her father abused her mother, how he abused her and how she kept that a secret for a long time while enduring what he was doing to her mother. By sometimes finding means of venting the endurance in the consumption of weed. She tried calling the police on her father but her mother slapped her — The kind of things people do and put themselves through, thinking about what the other people around and within would think. The kind of things people bear wondering what their child might become if the parents separate. They live through so much thinking about the future and never really see what the child is becoming NOW. What she is now going through and the person she’ll later turn into.
Mental trauma doesn’t necessarily come from first hand experience of something — it comes from growing up in an environment that is purely negative and toxic. Those words may sound vague but what she was going through wasn’t.
She woke up one morning and went to her mother. The first thing she could evidently see was her eye completely discoloured into utter blackness. She lost it. She lost her senses and her patience. The best thing she could find was a steel hanger lying in the room and she took it with a grip of anger and helplessness, walked up to her Dad who was still sleeping and beat him as hard as she possibly could. She knew he’d now come after her — so she quickly found herself back in her room and locked herself up for the eternity of that day. It did feel like an eternity when she couldn’t get any help. When nobody from home came to their help.
When she had called her aunt explaining about her entire situation, she sent her husband to their home to “discuss” things. Looking at her mother and the entire situation at home, the uncle “talked” — which is a word that means “did nothing” and then, left.
The helplessness wasn’t felt for the first time, neither was it the last.
It was a matter of time. A really long time of about 22 years until she decided to take her life into hands without depending on her mother or her dad, or the idea that she should be there for her mom. She just gave up on everything and with an affirmation that she’ll take care of herself.
She started the self care first by beginning to share about these things that were a part of her life and soul, to her best friend and then to a lot of other people. She let herself be vulnerable with a lot of people — talking about the parts of her life with unforgettable imagery.
The vulnerable conversation took her to a place where the images still existed but the emotions towards them didn’t. She has full knowledge of what has happened and what she’s been through but remembering any of that was now not making her feel any sadness. Emotional, yes. Sad, no. Just no. It’s a weird place to be but it’s a place where she felt better, stronger and responsible for her own life.
Sad things happen. Worse things happen. You cannot forget about them and they will always make you feel low. But the truth is, they will make you feel anything only until you keep those memories as exclusive things that you will only share once or twice with people because you don’t want to remember them. The truth is — it’s not that you don’t want to remember them, it’s that you want to save them for life to feel sad and really low. Because you seek to feel deeper emotions as an individual, as a human. But to be honest, these are not the deeper emotions that you must treasure.
Things that make you feel worse in life are like rollercoasters. The first time you see a rollercoaster, you fear getting onto it. But you keep getting on it again and again, and after enough number of times, it all fades away. The fear doesn’t exist anymore. On the contrary, if you get onto that rollercoaster once a year or two, the fear stays in your heart and will never leave. It’s the same fear felt for the same ride, every single time only because of the time interval you gave between each ride.
So, she took the ride her emotions took her onto, every time she spoke about her life with the tears that no second soul knew existed. She took the ride enough times that she doesn’t feel sad about it. They don’t make her emotions swing like a pendulum that lost control. She’s composed. She’s emotional, but composed and knows that she’s now a better person.
Vulnerability was the personification she embraced in her arms, while her eyes were filled with tears and the throat felt a lump caught inside. She held the vulnerability tighter through all the pain and it transported her to a place she longed to be in. She is in love now, with the world and its uncertainty.