Retreat

Retreat. My brain utters to me. Retreat!!! It begins to yell when I refuse to listen. It has screamed at me to protect my heart...my soul. To protect everything that is me. For so long I did just that. I retreated and protected myself. I hid behind the ex. I hid behind his temper. His fierceness. I hid behind his broad shoulders and wide stance. I hid behind his strength and his determination to protect me however he needed to.

I no longer have him. There is no boulder to hide behind. I have no armor to keep me safe. I am completely vulnerable to the impending doom that I know is out there waiting for me. Safety is an illusion. It is a fairy tale created by those that have not walked in my foot steps. I feel alone and abandoned in a world full of people who do not know the terror that lives in my mind every waking day and night.

Retreat! My mind pleads with me. He could be anywhere. The devil waits at the end of the grocery store isle. That tall, slender man could be him. Prepare to run just in case it is. Every stranger is a monster waiting to attack. Every shadow is the evil that I live with. Every sound is him approaching. I can not convince my mind other wise.

You're not safe. It tells me. You thought you were twice. You were wrong on both accounts. Why do you think you are now? What makes you so sure?

But, I'm not sure. I'm not anything but scared. My house is too big. My bed is too wide. My covers offer no sanctuary. I am afraid of the dark. I am leery of the light. Nowhere is safe for me. I am open to attack at all times.

I am hesitant to go home. Home. The most dangerous place on earth. And it is just that. Dangerous. Your home can be broken into. Your home is where you can get taken from. It is your home that will vomit you out and offer you up as a sacrifice to the evil that waits you. So, no, home is not a place of solitude.

Home is hell.

My friends offer no advice. They are at a loss of words. They can do nothing but sit and stare, mouth gaped open. Confused. Horrified at the thought that they know someone who lives with this. My misfortune has brought on a nightmare for them. They bite their lips. Fighting back the tears, they nod their head in the respective places during my nightmarish tale. But, their silence speaks louder than any words that they could ever utter. What do you say to someone who is broken? How can you offer to put someone back together when the pieces don't fit? There's nothing anyone can do for me. So, I all I can do is retreat.

Retreat into myself. Curl into a ball of emotions. Bury the pain. Bury the torture that lives in me. Bury it all and isolate myself. I have created a dam that I am determined to break. And when it does break, all I can do it pray that I pushed people back enough to the point that they will not be hurt by my own destruction.

Retreat.