No More Battles

Why I’m ready to stop fighting

I really should try and write when I’m not wiping away tears more often, but, I’m learning to just go with the flow more, even if it is streaming down my face at the same time.

I’ve increasingly been struggling to talk again. It’s honestly something that I carry a lot of shame about too. Although, the shame amongst loved ones I can overcome. It’s the bitterness that’s really starting to take root.

Why should I have to live with this? It’s not through any fault of my own. It makes me feel powerless in a way that’s constantly re-traumatising, as it’s a very real, present reminder that i wasn’t in control and now, not even of something as natural as my own speech.

It’s not as if I don’t have the ability to talk. I do. I’m just unable to all the time and I have no control over it and it honestly feels worse than if I was just physically unable to do so. That’s wrong though, right? To feel that way. That’s where my shame is. At the end of the day, at least I can talk a majority of the time and it’s wrong to idealise the idea of not being able to physically do so, as a more justifiable reason for my inability only at times.

I recognise that’s just another manifestation of depression, but also a gateway to suicide ideation, which I’m trying hard to ward off.

It’s also heartbreaking.

Pushing me into a cycle of reliving trauma and wishing, just hoping, it could have gone any other way. Pointless exercises really, like, wishing I was never there. Wishing I was never Nigerian. Wishing I was never brought up Christian. Wishing I never called off my engagement. Mentally tormenting myself with trying to create alternative life scenarios. The same me, without this trauma, would be x, y, z or any number of other things, but the person who sits here feeling helpless and forever like lost or unfulfilled potential.

It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m living in the shadow of what could have been, by actually being able to switch on at times. High-functioning Funmi rears her head at times. I feel her inside me too, all my thoughts, plans etc. It’s all still there. I just can’t execute anymore and it’s maddening and soul-destroying all at once.

Well-meaning friends and family saying I’ll be fine. I’ll get back to the way I was. Prayers, affirmations, smiles, hugs etc. They used to be hopeful inspiring boosts of energy that would drive me forward just that little bit more, but as I keep facing cognitive roadblocks, they now feel like reminders that no, no actually, nothing will be the same.

It has all changed.

I have been impacted and, in a way I didn’t ask for or want, but in a way that’s inescapable.

Facing cognitive impairment at the hands of other people really sucks.

It almost makes me wish that it was just me being lazy or stupid or lacking motivation. Something actually in my control. Only to be brought careering back to the reality that it isn’t. It just isn’t.

It’s not in my control, it’s something that I’m going to have to learn to accept and be okay with.

It’s something I’m going to have to stop fighting.

The moment this clicked in my brain, the muscle tension in my body released and I was able to talk again.

A win shouldn’t feel like such an admission of defeat, should it?

Well, it does.

It feels like I’m surrendering to everybody who took part in any of my trauma.

It feels like I’ve finally been broken, kneeling down battered and bruised in front of all of my abusers and saying fine, you win.

There’s no peace in that, if I’m honest.

Just more complicated emotions, but a release nevertheless.

Then it brings me back to what Complex PTSD/PTSD is at the end of the day.

It’s a permanent state of living in survival mode.

The very mental embodiment of the idea that I can’t drop my vigilance. I always have to be ready to fight. It’s addictive, sure, makes me feel in control.

If I stay ready, who can beat me?

But that’s just not life, is it.

Most things are out of your control.

It doesn’t matter how ready you are. How smart you are. What race you are. What gender you are. Where you come from. Who your parents are. What you’ve been able to achieve/not achieve.

Life just happens, and with life, for some of us, we fall victim to a lot of ugly stuff in it. Sadly.

And so it’s another opportunity for me to recognise I’m disassociating still, but also that dissociation won’t save me. It won’t bring me the release I need to feel free from my past.

I need to recognise that there was nothing else I could have done; it just is and I just am. Being here is enough. Fighting now, is not going to erase what happened or make up for it, because it’s not making up for anything anyway. Whether it was that I wasn’t able to fight, because I was a child or that I did fight and only got battered and further abuse in response or didn’t fight, because I was terrified. It just doesn’t matter, because the impact of these traumatic experiences is not by my own hand, it’s by other hands, hands that were going to do what they wanted anyway and I had and still have no control over that.

And the reality of that isn’t peaceful, no, not right now, but at least one step further to letting it go.

To stepping into a future where I’m not fighting anymore. Where I can just be.

A future that isn’t constantly living in anticipation of more battles, because, that’s not the way I want to live anymore.

And that’s fine.

Life doesn’t have to be something I win at, just something I experience and take day by day.

It also gives me time to appreciate the beauty in myself more, therefore in turn the beauty in other things.

Like, the fact that I actually did manage to cycle over 2000+ miles totally by myself across the states.

Or that, I was able to watch my baby sister bring a play I wrote 9 years ago to life in such an amazing way.

Or that, I’m able to support my sister in her career and her healing journey.

Or that, somehow I can still laugh and also make other people laugh.

And all those things feel good.

And all those things don’t have to be battles, if I don’t want them to be.

Work, yes, but not a battle.

Like the hard grind of cycling up a mountain to see the sun kiss the top of it and feel the gust of fresh air rush over my face as I surrender into the descent.

Life can be like that, if I want it to be.

And I prefer the idea of that.

So I’m ready to stop fighting, because I simply don’t need to anymore. Not right now.

Now I can just. Be.