All at once

I wish that when something devastating happened you could just choose to give up. I mean, I know most people say things like "I had to be strong for XYZ reason"... but what if you had a choice? What if you had no one that you were actually responsible for and you could just simply say "I'd like to give up now."?

And then *poof*, someone takes the pain away. They take you away and then you don't have to continuously relive that horrible moment that brought you to your knees. You don't have to allow that thing that damn near swallowed you whole to continue to live inside of you.

Why should it get to live on? You don't get to truly live. Instead it lives inside of you and you have to wake up in the morning and slowly let it all seep painfully back into your consciousness. Then you get to watch time tick by slowly while every minute is greeted with a pain that might as well be a blade through your skin. Every time you think of that ugly festering thing you get nauseous so you can't even look forward to simple pleasures like eating a meal during the day.
So you continue to pray that something distracts you for even the smallest moment so you don't have to deal with the constant reminder that your failed life is dancing a cheerful dance in your brain. During all of this day... your one objective is to get to the night time, to bring an end to the day... when you can sleep and not have to be consciously tortured by your mistakes and the wrong doings that have been done to you. Not to mention the decisions you've made that were (of course discovered too late) the wrong decisions.

But then sleep... it's just as evil as wake. In sleep your mind can take your fears, the fears it had so slyly learned during your waking hours, and it can run with them. Sleep can turn them into reality. Force you to see what you're trying your hardest to forget.

How beautiful this brain is.
It rips us to shreds and leaves us cowering on the ground.
Makes us wish that life didn't exist.
It hurts and hurts and hurts and just when I think I can't take anymore - everything grows quiet and calm. When the brain can't handle any more it shuts down. Then there is nothing. Nothing except the quiet whisper of one sentence; "I don't want to exist anymore".

I have to fight back from that. Constantly. PTSD intensifies everything that I experience... the good and the bad. My biggest question is always "What's the point in all of this? Why do we wake up and choose to struggle through a day?" I constantly want to ask people what makes them want to get up in the morning.
Just when I think I can't answer any of those questions, I have these strong serene moments where I see the good in the world. I see purpose and people with cancer who are fighting like hell for their life and then someone, unknowingly, squeezes me in to the facets of their world - making me feel like I belong somewhere.

This world can be so beautiful and so very cruel all at the same time.

At first, I was afraid to share such brutal honesty. I wanted to keep it for myself, as I usually do. But then I realized, that's not what this blog is about. This blog is about me being able to say the real things, the things that other people might not understand. The things that make the people who do understand, feel less alone.
...About the things that PTSD does to the mind - regardless if someone is behind me whispering "you're not supposed to say that out loud...".

They say "That's not normal."
Well, it's my normal.