Struggling

I hope that you'll bear with me as I try to gather my thoughts. I've got my shoes laced up - ready to run but my feet are anchored to the floor.

I've got a choice that doesn't feel like a choice at all. See this through to the end or stop. Stop fighting for my voice to be heard. Stop - breathe and try to find a way to navigate this trauma and take the steps to begin healing.

This case has made my mental health take a nosedive. Some days I am drowning and wishing it would all stop. I don't feel alive - my emotional range is feeling too much or nothing at all. I don't want to unalive myself but I want to take a knife to my skin to cut out all the bad. I want to dig deep into myself to remove all the parts that he touched. That he scarred. That he tried to destroy. I was not destroyed but I am the frayed edge of fabric continuously unraveling.

I am unraveling and every person who calls me brave, strong, courageous or says that they wish they had been able to do this. I AM UNRAVELING. I AM NOT FULLY FUNCTIONAL. I am a fraction of who I was before. I want to primal scream into the void with every kind well-meaning statement because I do not feel strong. If I were strong - built up like a well armored fortress all of this would not penetrate the walls that were built around me to protect myself and yet here we are. Their words are weapons sharpened to stab into me, to dissect and make me question my memory. Question my sanity. Question my voice. This is what happens. This is what they do. I would not wish this on anyone. The limbo that you hang in for years. Unable to move on, unable to forget, always speaking and reliving what happened.

My body is heavy machinery and my trauma is the lettering on a pill bottle stating that you shouldn't operate heavy machinery while under the influence. Read that again. Really let that sink in. Do you understand that? Do you feel it?

If I pursue this, I have a strong case but...there it is...a but...

Do you know what that means? It means that all of this could come to absolutely nothing. It means that even though there is evidence. He could still walk. So I will have fought tooth and nail to make them see the damage, see what was done and understand. Put myself through hell just to watch him get to live life freely without being haunted by what happened?

So here I am...weighing what will destroy me less. What will be the best choice? What do I do?

I have days where I am completely depleted of energy. Days where a trip to the grocery store is too much and after I need time to not speak, not be, to escape into nothingness. I need things to stop. Everything to stop.

I am barely holding myself together some days that the smallest thing happens and the weight becomes too much. I feel like I'm deteriorating and pieces of me are just dissolving into the abyss. I am blindly searching in the dark for a way out but you can't escape your own mind - not even in sleep because everything still haunts me. I am an abandoned home full of ghosts, demons walk the halls and rattle the foundation. I am rage threatening to destroy anything that crosses my path. I burn hot with it. I am grief crying tears of anguish of the things stolen from me.

I am a storm of emotions that continuously ebb and flow. I have days where I feel alive and am able to feel happy. I have days of joy and moments of peace. Not everyday is dark and all consuming but it's always there resting on the edge of my mind - ready to strike. So I stand here shoes laced up and ready. Do I slip my feet out and run or stay anchored to the floor geared up to fight a battle that I may never win?