Life isn't always what it seems to be.

Trauma effects us all differently.

The same situation can arise in someone else's life, but the trauma left behind varies from person to person. No one will understand the pain that you feel, not precisely. We are all living in the same place, but from different perspectives.

Just because you see someone that you think is doing well and handling their trauma, they could be dying inside. You don't know how they feel until you ask them, and that's if they'll tell you the truth. They could feel the pain so much and so often, that it has become a hum in the background. Getting suppressed, pushed aside or forgotten, but it's always there. You can feel the lingering sense that something isn't right.

I often struggle with this. People see me smiling and laughing every day, but what they don't see, are the nightmares, the panic attacks, the crushing feeling that something is going to trigger another repressed memory. They don't know that the thought of "being happy", feels like an unachievable goal.

I have experienced a lot of things, and I can remember, but I also know that I have experienced other things, I just can't remember.

Trying to think about growing up is hard, because every member of my family has a different recollection of how it went. I hear them tell these stories about how much fun it was growing up, and I can't recall any of these memories. It's really hard trying to be a part of a family when you can't remember anything before the age of 20, besides all the bad things that have happened to you. And I think that is what is hard for others to understand.

They can't fathom that your brain is just shut off from those years. It's like you were living on a different planet for 20 years and now you're thrown into a life where you have no idea of who you are, or how you got there. It's a really challenging experience. They were too busy living and growing up, while you were trying to heal and survive. They didn't even notice what was happening to you, the changes in your behavior.

I was told, a lot when I was younger, that I was "grown up" for my age. Every time I hear that as an adult now, it makes me sad. Sad to think that I never got to be a child because my childhood was stolen from me too many times. My innocence was ripped right from my body without having a say. That, is what kills me inside. That you're surrounded by all these people that love you, but that can't see that you were and still are suffering.

The feeling that you might never remember your life, the good and the bad, is heart breaking. It's hard to think about. It's hard to try to build a life when you don't know how you got where you are today. Often times people will tell me to just "get over it" , "move on" , "don't think about it". This is when I usually try to adjust and compartmentalize my life. When I get to a good place and think I have it all figured out, BAM, a repressed memory comes back, and my whole sense of self identity is shattered.

The moral of the story of life when dealing with trauma, no matter how hard you work to forget or recover, you will still have that lingering sense of the unknown. The sense that your life is not your own.

The feeling that you are living a strangers life.