Unmarked Grave

I keep waking in the middle of the night. Mind racing. Unaware of why I can't go back to sleep. I haven't had a decent rest in weeks. My body responds with familiar health issues: headaches, jaw pain, back and shoulder spasms, indigestion. Mood swings.

Intuition whispers it's a soul piece reintegrating. After reading Ingrid Clayton's 'Believing Me' it seems inevitable something will return. Something must return. You don't read something personal and raw, so close to your own journey, without stepping off the ledge into the next healing free fall.

This soul piece. She's giving me night terrors. #soulretrieval is never easy. It isn't designed for comfort. The trauma resurfaces and I must accept the tidal wave of emotions. Last night, I felt a small part of what I'm reintegrating.

A desperate battle for survival.

I'm young, not sure how old, flailing against something heavy and suffocating. I scream. LEAVE ME ALONE. GO AWAY. But my cries are ignored. No matter how hard I fight, it grows heavier. There's no escape. No relief. I'm sinking into nothingness.

My eyes fly open. Finally, finally, FINALLY I see a small part of what terrorises me at night. And a terrible sense it isn't over. My first thought, 'please let this be a metaphor for what happened, tell me there isn't a part two and something far more sinister to remember.' Perhaps this is the soul piece making me fully aware of what constant mind games do to the psyche.

It's like being buried alive. Each throw of the dirt a callous reminder your experience is insignificant. Your words cut off, your story entombed. And healing is digging yourself out from the unmarked grave. Rebellious squirming and clawing. Muffled screaming. Until you surface, wipe the grit from your eyes, and discover your view is meaningful. Your voice is powerful.

This soul piece gifts me a new sense of freedom. I have so desperately wished to see good in my childhood. Where the love grew, even in the darkness. Full-bellied, roof over my head, vacations, no physical bruises, happy faces in family portraits. But healing means accepting Father was always playing mind games. Brother was always playing mind games. Mom was...mom. She fashioned me into her shield and her harbour in the storm so she didn't have to fight. Kept me shackled to the people hell bent on my destruction. Enabled the abuse with her silence. Often tricked me into believing she'd protect me from Brother and Father. (She found a bit of her voice before the dementia settled in. I'm proud of her for that.) She also threw the dirt onto my struggling psyche.

The "good" memories = smoke and mirrors. The constant mind games mean none of them are real. I can't trust them at all.

Which means I can finally untether myself and leave them behind.

I take a deep breath. Sink into this soul-reintegration. Let this new empowerment ripple through my existence.