Some edgy journal name **trigger warning: child abuse, sexual assault, self harm, suicide**

Fighting this strange driving euphoria. It's hard to explain. Its like this dissociated state thats just driving me. Driving me to escape. ** ***. I feel like I am coming up on some really good stuff. Yet I have taken nothing. I rarely if ever drink, no drugs outside of basic medication in years. I keep getting it periodically. An intense sense of freedom and drive to escape. Yet as ever I sit here frozen. Because I don't trust good feelings, or freedom. And escaping is pointless when they follow you. You puzzle in your head where you could go and how. All the ways to go undetected. Dreaming your escape built on filmset plans.

But what are you running from little girl? And where are you running to? Can you escape what you are running from? Because I know I can't. Some things you don't escape. You have the body chemical drive, that euphoric need to go. But nowhere to go. No escape. They will follow you until the ends of the earth and beyond.

You're haunting my dreams. You never do anything, won't give me evidence even in my dreams. But you smile at me and I know. I cannot speak, barely breath, a ghost in a beautiful family photo. I go insane living with a monster no one sees. Eventually you lead me somewhere, further and further, I see that door. I run, run back to the photo, absolute terror driving me. I know. There are more monsters, more monsters no one sees. They smile at me and brush off my distress to their wives, their children. I am dirty, in a once white nightgown. I am cowering away yet unable to leave. And you smile. And I know. And I wake. And I don't know.

I don't post about good things much in here, its often not the point. But. I am determined to post some victories.

Despite this absolutely hellish year I've had, and honestly am still having. I got a good review at work. I have reduced my hours to half days, 5 days a week and despite everything they have said I have gone above and beyond this year <3. I mean I have the nicest manager I've ever had so that helps, but I so relieved. They value my work and input into the team <3 that means so much to me. I don't have many friends and I generally struggle in many situations, work for me is my safe place, its where I get a lot of my self esteem. I so happy they have recognised the amount of effort I've put into work this year, its been gruellingly hard but I am beginning to feel I may see 2022.

And the second thing. Today I went cycling. I absolutely love cycling, its one of very few healthy activities I happily do for fun. I haven't cycled since Dec last year and although I was hilariously awful and had an asthma attack, but you know what? I did it. And I still want to go out again. This is huge!

There is stuff I am struggling with right now, a lot of it. But its nice to see some good things many months later :).

I feel so triggered. So so so so so triggered. My brain just wants to hide. Found a picture, a drawing. A man, obviously my father posed over a young puppet covered in blood. It was obviously sexual. The puppet was obviously meant to be me. I know it's stupid but I've been in so much denial over everything, that picture just. Its broken me.

Went shopping today with mum, it feels like someone else goes on those trips. I apparently have these lovely times and a wonderful day. I come back and want to ***. Nothing feels like me anymore.

I am so overwhelmed right now I am struggling to focus on any one thing. My brain is just a mess of nothing. I don't get it why I am so nothing. Other people react. In so many ways. Throw up, collapse, cry, idk all these things. But I am terrified of throwing up, am not allowed to collapse and have no tears. I feel like that doll in the picture. Just a puppet that moves on strings.

My chiropractor said I was good at being floppy. Good at appearing relaxed and malleable. Yet underneath is a core of tension if you know what to look for. Its funny though even saying that she said I generally seem relaxed in my sessions with her, which makes me want to laugh. I despise people touching me, standing behind me, touching my head, anywhere near my neck. I told her it was exposure therapy for me. I am far from relaxed.

Just rambling now. I wish I was a wizard of Earthsea, I would become a bird and never turn back again, just exist and die.

** tw detail about nightmare **
Last nights nightmare was bad. I don't remember much outside of the end. There were these women sitting on a bench I don't know where but I was grabbed by the side of the neck and this woman pushed me to the floor and shoved her fingers into my mouth, choking me. All I remember after that is trying to scream, with all my body. But I couldn't, I was trying all I could but I couldn't breath in or out so despite trying with everything I had for what seemed like an age no sound was made. It felt like drowning without drowning, felt like there was liquid in my mouth and nose but there was none, I couldn't breath in or out like there was fabric over my face.
** end tw **

I woke up from this in what I think was a flashback but honestly its very blurry I don't remember much. Kept crying for a few breaths and then flopping with my mind and body turned off in a cycle. My partner asked how he could help so I managed to get out that a cup of tea would help. Which reminded me of some tea I had yesterday, a coconut, turmeric and ginger tea which set me off again and he had to throw it away. Kept touching my mug off tea until it burned me just searching for the heat. After ~hour I was not calming down any and had no idea what was going on so took some sedatives and slept until 3pm.

So yeh, woke up and dragged my totally broken being to the shops to get food as we have none. Just ate some food. Feeling like a shell of a human being today.

Spoke to my therapist, she thinks we should get all my art work from art therapy I did last year and lay it all out on the floor. She thinks we should look at it all together. I want to but I am scared. It feels like pieces of a puzzle, I guess it's yet more pieces of the puzzle that is my life.

There are a few particular ones I want to see: My second piece, where I drew my body and marked it with colours where different people had abused me. Another piece that was of my old bedroom, and I remember drawing this shadow in my doorway, and I knew it was my dad. I think there were a lot of shadows in my first drawings. Then theres some later ones I want to fit in. One where I was trying to draw myself as a man at the start but I ended up drawing my father, naked, with my body sexualised next to it and a bunch of other stuff. Another one where I was drawing different abuse situations in stick men, but the way I drew myself I looked like young girl, not the adult I thought I was. And split face where again I was struggling with gender issues and was exploring myself as a man, but the face I drew. It was not human, it looked like a demons, scarred and awful. Then finally a drawing where I look kinda like a fertility icon which I have a visceral reaction to.

There are others but those are ones I feel a need to see. To line up and really look at. I don't know what I want to see or find, but hey my therapist things so, and I agree so lets do this I guess xD.

Run up to Christmas. I am actually feeling okay, which is a relief. Feels strange though, like the calm before the storm. Theres just this idk settled dread in the pit of my stomach. I've been sleeping on the sofa downstairs and its feeling safer, my lounge is in my basement which makes me feel safe.

I know its bad but my partner has covid, and I keep kinda wishing I could have it on Christmas Day so I have an excuse to just sleep through it all... which I know is bad but I just wanna yahknow, get through it. Who knows... I am not sure I really mean it, I don't want covid. But then I also have this fear, like I get past Christmas and it gets way worse again. Frick I dunno. My life's being run by an emotional calendar I am generally unaware of.

And then my therapist asked a question...

Literally just got off my call with my therapist where she asked a question that totally threw me. Don't know how we got there but I was saying how I hate being ill because my father always took me to the doctors. Like no matter what it was I was always being taken to the stupid doctors.

Then I said when I was a child (before 9) there was this rule that if you didn't eat your fruit for breakfast you were not well enough to go in, and then I followed it up with "And I always ate that fruit! I was not going to get stuck at home.". So like the good therapist she is she asked a question that obviously had not occurred to me. Why would a child want to eat that fruit knowing if they didn't eat it they could stay home? Andddddd then I told her I was really uncomfortable, I don't know and I don't want to.

She kindly let me distract my brain with other things and we talked about other stuff. But now it's after the session and my brains going in circles. Why would a child not want to stay at home, I mean from what I knew a lot of the time it was just my mum, but then he worked from home at some stage? I think? No idea when though. I don't know if the fruit thing and the home thing were at the same time. I have no memories of what happened if I stayed at home. I know I've always hated being ill, or anyone near me when I am ill. But then being ill is being vulnerable and being vulnerable as a child in an abusive household isn't good. But I keep getting this slimy doom feeling. IDK. I can't afford this break down right now, gotta get through Christmas. I hate all these boxes with more questions than answers.

Caught covid, feel awful... just want to share that lol.

Trying some embroidery. Nothing week is nearly over and struggling with fears for January. I've been stable for about a month now maybe more and I am worried I'll rollercoaster again. Voices getting louder as we go towards Jan. Keep asking my partner if I can quit therapy. He said no. He's right but it's going in a direction I don't like. I have struggled remembering the last 2 much at all.

Told my therapist I am doing better in the shower, which is true. But we discussed the fact I was basically constantly grounding while I am in the shower, and she asked why. I said because it kept having to remind myself it was my shower in my house. That my parents used to have a similar one in my sister and I's bathroom. I said I kept checking over my shoulder for a man.

Waiting to try and get all my old art work in order, there are some pieces I desperately want to see, they feel like puzzle pieces.