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Recapturing The Fire

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Toadette

Learning
I think one of the things about trauma is it is often a lonely thing. Especially if you're young and still trying to work the world out. It can make the world very dark and difficult to navigate so you brace yourself for what seems a constant imminent pain.

My nana, she was a great woman. Everyone always said the "down and outs" used to flock to her and she would spend most of her time worrying about other people. Especially me. Sometimes I would feel angry and hurt by her lack of anger towards my abuser (my mother.) But I see now, my nana knew that these things are all symptoms of pain. It's why she always saw the good in me and the bad didn't matter.

I wrote about her in my trauma diary. I pushed myself too far last night. Now that I'm coming to terms with my ptsd I feel a huge anxiety to get the poison out of me as fast as I can. Maybe to 'fix' myself or maybe because I want to prove my nana right. But this is one of the times I can't go too fast. I need to be patient with myself or I'll just be surrounded by ghosts.

The thing that upset me last night was the fact I didn't see my nana towards the end as much as I should. To be honest I buried my head in the sand. I'd always said that when my nana goes I go. Still here though, thought that's what my problem was.

The worst of it was, during the time I wasn't seeing her I was hanging around with a really bad crowd. I thought I found people who understood but really we all were running from that. This has caused me a lot of anguish. I became someone I really didn't like, who I knew my nana didn't want me to be. Not just saying it, but I think I just didn't want her to see me like that.

I realised today, my nana was the one hand that held me back when I reached out into the darkness as a child. She lead me around the obstacles as best she could. She had a lantern to help show me where to go. The fire kept me warm. But when she was getting ill I saw it dimming.

I also realised today that the whole time I'd been in the dark, I'd been collecting kindle. Everywhere I went I picked it up. Anxiety is carrying the world on your shoulders and it weighs heavy. Lately I just checked and found all this kindle weighing me down.

After my nana died, the lantern surprisingly didn't go out. I just found myself in the dark with the little bit of fire left over from her. It wasn't the complete blackness I had expected, but it was still dark and I found myself all alone again.

I don't know how many of you know Jung's synchronicity theory but Google explains it as follows

"Synchronicity is a concept, first explained by psychiatrist Carl Jung, which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related. "

Sorry to go on a tangent again (it might be my favourite thing to do) but when I was a kid I got one of those magic fish things in a Christmas cracker. The kind you put on your hand and how it folds is supposed to tell you your future or something about you, depending on the company. Mine at that time said "there is a fire inside of you." I cried at the time, because I took it literally.

It took me a long time to realise I had PTSD and not BPD or Bipolar. It seems so obvious but sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees. And one tree makes a thousand matches but it only takes one match to burn a forest, or something like that.

I realised, my nana helped me through the darkness. When the lantern started to dim I realised I needed kindle. Fast. I was too busy carrying the weight on my back I forgot what I was collecting it for. So I set fire to it. Turns out the fish was right, more right than I could ever have imagined.

My nanas lantern helped start my fire, and I have a lot of kindle. The world is a lot less dark now, and it's warm. It's not lonely anymore because some people have seen my fire and come to enjoy it with me now. I see the word fire a lot now, as if to assure me it's there and I'm where I meant to be. All my life I've been out of sync, and in a way always will be. But that's okay, the fire burns on.

The world is now not as dark as I thought it was. I see other peoples fire and all of them combined is just mindblowing. Thank you for lighting up the world. My nana thanks you too.
 
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Aye! they say that you never realise what you've got, until it's gone? It sounds like you were really close to your nana, and she guided through the dark times.

I never knew my grandparents very well, we only saw them once a year when we used to go down South, in a whistle stop tour of our parents families.
 
Ah! I must have got it wrong, I thought you were talking about your Grandmother, when you mentioned nana?

Sometimes I wish I had someone to show me "the light" when I was younger, but I had to find out the hard way?
 
Ah! I must have got it wrong, I thought you were talking about your Grandmother, when you mentioned nana...

Yes she is my grandma, my mother side live here and she was my mothers mother. My fathers side live in Scotland. Should have clarfied that haha :P I'm definitely thankful to have had that light, I think it's great though that you are evidently reaching out and being that for other people. It says a lot of great things about you, same with my nana.
 
thank you for sharing, that was so lovely and touching and am so glad that you took the torch to carry forwards.:hug:
 
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