Willingly handing over all power because you’ve been worn down and misled into believing that they can manage your life and your expectations much better than you ever could.
Slowly but surely losing all of your freedoms and responsibilities and graciously accepting it because it gives you more time to figure out where you’ve been going wrong and to work on yourself as a person, because you’ve been told that you need to.
At first it was quite novel, but now you realise just how soulless you feel, and just how vulnerable you feel in the hands of your ‘protector’ the self-appointed ruler of your world, who doesn’t trust you with a single task anymore and you’ve come to believe that you deserve this life.
All at once they are protective and ridiculing of you, belittling and hurtful all wrapped up in chaotic love, they’re doing it because deep down they care and deep down they know best.
Who were you before all this happened? How would you ever cope without their rules and guidance? You’re scared to make mistakes, but you’re scared you’re losing yourself. Maybe you really are as useless as you feel, it’s just best to shut up, and disappear, and be a respectful blank page of obedience, the path of least resistance never looked so good.
But what if you just broke free, ran the streets and never looked back? Would you meet the fate you’ve been trained to fear, or would you manage to survive? Who are you really hiding from? The abuser or yourself? The demons in your head or the real-life threats that are hiding in plain sight?
Sitting inside in self-isolation, self-incurred cage walls are thick and damning and judge your every breath. The power that placed you in the corner to think is watching every thought you ponder and every movement you make. The hardest cage to break free from is the mind because when the gate is closed only you can be the one to open it again.
This isolation the powers that be have decreed has created a sick slick of oil across my consciousness, my mind is wrought with the fear and the sickening vulnerability I felt when locked in that room, that mind, it took all of my power to break free from and yet in a blink of an eye, all of the control I nearly died to regain has been taken away all over again.
The same reasonings. The same double-edged sword. The same mindset creeps in.
“It’s for your own good.”
“It’s because we care.”
“If you don’t, there will be consequences.”
Suddenly the world is a scary place again. Suddenly strangers are dangerous. Suddenly my thoughts are irrational, and my anxiety is undermined. Suddenly I’m overreacting and under reacting all at once. I just don’t understand. I’m putting myself at risk. I’m making people sick. They care more. I’m weak. I’m weak and scared. I’m weak and scared and helpless. Only this time I can’t break the prison walls down or I’ll be breaking the law. There is no escape anytime soon and I feel like I’m drowning in past trauma and pain.
Forced to sit in the middle of four walls. All plans on hold. I keep being told things will get better but what happens if your mind eats itself inside out before that comes?
What happens when you centred yourself upon the newfound freedom you found? What happens when you revert to that place that you managed to only just save yourself from the last time? What happens when you quantified your very being on how well you were doing, how far you’d come and how free you felt?
Will this be my downfall or my phoenix moment? I’m not quite sure yet. Forged from flames or consumed by the blaze. Fall into creative bliss or lose the last shreds of confidence. Staying safe for me is simply trying to survive. That’s ok. Just trying to be mindful of thoughts and feelings as they come but not let them consume me because I’ve run out of places to hide.
Breathe. You got through this before and just remember how strong you felt when you made it out the first time. And to anyone who is feeling the clench of both a cage created by a partner/loved one and now one put in place by the government as well, do what you need to do to make it through these times and then take the first chance you can to escape. There are helplines and charities in place for abusive relationships and situations, please remember that just because we’ve been locked away doesn’t mean no one cares. You deserve to stretch your wings and fly, may these times help you realise just how beautiful being free is.
After this may we all indulge in the freedom of life and dance, sing, play and fly together.
For now. I will just count down the days with deep breathing and simple things that make me smile and remember parts of my soul that have been lost.
Have Hope in Hopeless times.
Show love in scary times.
Be light in the darkest times.
This is strength and I know you have it in you.
To all trauma survivors, you can survive this too.
To all of you feeling traumatized by the current situation, reach out, we’re all feeling it in different ways.
And to all of you trapped in a double cage of trauma, please, you owe it to yourself to get though this, you deserve the life on the other end, you owe it to all of the missed opportunities and the self-love and the adventures that will come after the storm passes.
The world is one broken heart beating as one now. Notice the love and stay away from the shadows.
Zoe MacKenzie
