Oh hallo thar PTSD, would you like some tea?

I was supposed to write a childhood memory poem for Creative Writing, and right now I have a skeleton of a poem. Here it is:

Defiance

Rushing through the thin halls
Thick with the bodies of students,
A young girl pulls on her pink frilly coat,
Another brushes past, lighting the fuse.

Like a stick of dynamite, the girl erupts, chasing her down the hall
Pink in the face, eyes a flash of glaring red,
Words fly on both ends, unabated, the tension pools over, mouths flapping away.
One of them is silenced, her defiance cooled.

The impact steals away the girl’s last remaining dignity,
All is numb, her vision is hazy
Flashes of black, white, her world is spinning,
Her friends are laughing, all ringing

Surprisingly, the calm washes over as face meets mettle,
Who would have thought she’d go out this way?
A teacher watches close by, is she moving, passing?
Again the ringing

The tears sting down the girl’s cheeks,
She falls to the floor in a crumbled heap.
Everything is dark, nothing but the torture of defeat.
She holds her head in her hands as she weeps.

The other is ashamed; she is still kicking and flailing,
Tearing down her own pain, all she can feel is relief.
She is attacking relentlessly, wildly;
Can’t you see she hurts the same?

Bloody knuckles, cracked and bruised
Shaking and crying, head in her hands.
Things are becoming clear, she dashes away with friends in tow,
All is till dark for the one below.

She is lead up by strong caring arms
Carried down the halls, all is empty and quiet
Her world is still numb, unfeeling
Her savior reassuringly pats her aching and raw back.

Nothing can be seen but black and white,
Still all but hazy
Her defiance finally silenced.


Aside from the poem being dreadful, it brings up a memory from my past that I usually don't talk about, but it's affected me more than I'd like to admit.

Apparently, I suffer from post traumatic stress disorder as a result, thus says the one with the PHD, but I'm not comfortable identifying myself like this.

I stubbornly believe my reactions to things around me are my own, but every so often I'll see things a little bit differently than my family. My mom will always become sad and serious, and tell me in a quiet voice that a terrible thing had happened to me, and now my disorder is being brought back into the fore front of my psych. Maybe she won't always say this so clearly, but whenever she reminds me I can't help but cry every time.
I hate to think that I don't have control over the way I react. I refuse to believe that this holds anything over me.

For instance, when the drunken teenagers crashed their car into our house recently and nearly killed our entire family, I haven't been sleeping very well. I'll stay awake, toss and turn, and think about what if. Also, whenever I hear loud car related noises outside, for instance: Speeding cars, roaring engines, and skidding sounds-- I'll get scared and panicky. Last night a car was roaring it's engine for a few minutes while I sat out in the family room trying to watch a movie. I literally sat stock still, heart beating fast, listening and wondering what the hell was going on. Than the car started speeding around the neighborhood, over and over, screeching and skidding for 5 minutes or longer. I was shaking, and crying, and so very scared. I ended up running into my mom's room and hopping onto her bed even though she was trying to sleep. I'm even more afraid that I'll always react this way to car noises. I don't feel safe in my own house anymore, and I'm so incredibly paranoid...I feel like any moment something else will crash into our house.

But really...all because I was attacked in 8th grade?
When I think about it, it feels like something so little. I was jumped, I was beaten, it was over right?

It was when I lost my childhood though...I forced to grow up right on the spot. It took a few years for me to get over it; I was forced into therapy, pulled away from everyone, and tried to handle my emotion and frightening growth on my own.

It still doesn't feel like it sounds so terrible though. Like, unless you experienced it, you wouldn't understand. Maybe it's because it happened to me while I was a kid.

Someone I had never met before, beat the living hell out of me for brushing up against her in the thin Jackson Middle School hallway. She spun me around in circles and pounded my face. I never swung back, all I could do was think. There was a teacher standing there the entire time and she DID NOT MOVE OR STOP IT. I could see her still standing there, while I was spinning, and numb. It hurt but I didn't feel a thing. It was a strange experience. All the while, the girls friends kept screaming at me, and words of encouragement to their friend, "Kill the white girl!".
Jesus Christ, was I going to die?
It felt like it.

At the time, I just kept spinning, and spinning. It wouldn't stop. The teacher did nothing. I couldn't get away, spinning, she kept pounding me, still spinning. I thought that was the end, I thought she was going to beat me to death right than and there. It was terrible, but I felt ashamed to die there. If I died here, this way...I truly felt like it was happening.

When she finally let go or I got away, I don't know, I fell into a fetal position. I didn't feel anything, I just sat on the ground and cried into my hands. It was all black, it was like all I could hear was the sound of my own sobbing in a dark echoing room.
But when I later got home, my back as covered in bruises. Another teacher had also confirmed; She was beating me and kicking at my body while I sat there on the ground.
I mean how sick is that? I didn't even know it was happening, I was lost, I was gone.

And this girl didn't know me. Why did she do this?
She beat me hard enough for doctors to think I had a skull fracture...

I'm shaking as I type this...
Maybe it's also the fact that there was no justice on the part of the school administration.
They didn't do anything about it. The teacher standing there didn't stop it. They wouldn't let us see the tape from the camera above. They suspended her for 3 days, but lucky for me I suppose, her family fled to North Dakota, and there was a warrant out for her arrest.
Also, they would only call it assault.
Any legal definition will tell you that it was far more than that.

Vida's status on Skype: "What doesn't kill you...gives you post traumatic stress disorder."
I thought I was going to die...is that why I have it?

After the incident I likened to calling myself two-face. Half my face was horribly disfigured, while the other looked like me. I didn't realize it also had another meaning for the person I had become as a result.
There were two parts of me vying for control. There was the childlike innocence that was there before, and the new hateful pessimist who was angered by all of it.

My therapist always tried to get me to take pills, to curb the latter, but I always refused. Again, I'm not okay with something else controlling my life or emotions. To this day, I'm proud and very glad of the decision I made. Sure, it was really tough handling things on my own and getting better in my own right, but I became a better person because of it. It took awhile, and I had to navigate a lot of dangerous emotions, but I wouldn't have been able to do that with pills. The pills would have held me back, repress the growth. I had to do that alone.

Because of this, a lot of who I am today is a direct result of who I had to grow into.

If I were to sit my ass down in a comfy chair and cross examine myself...
Hmm.
Well for starters, the whole fear of death thing is very easily explained from this. Or rather, how non-confrontational I am now. I'm scared to get into any heated argument, antagonize, or even question another person for fear of violent retaliation that could possibly take my life away.
I guess in turn, this would than prove to reason why I don't speak up about myself as much either.
I also don't like revealing things like this, because a lot of people talk about things of this nature to get attention or sympathy (which I loathe and DO NOT want to be mistaken for) so I tend to keep things to myself, and possibly than work out problems or ideas on my own.
Thus the independence. For the most part, I don't rely much on other people. I don't NEED other people, it's more a WANT thing which I respect more anyways. If I share something, it's not because I need to, but because I want to. If I spend time with you, WANT not NEED. Plus it's more healthy.
The constant need for freedom. Another good one. Why am I so afraid of being tied down? Right now, I apparently have this thing that controls my anxiety, etc. and that's not okay with me. I feel like I hinder myself, and I want to desperately break free. This than translates into my overall desire to be independent from almost everything. I don't want to be held back by anything...

Really, I think most of my blog entries could be explained like this...which kinda really pisses me off.

Honestly, I'm in denial of having post traumatic stress disorder, but everyone is constantly telling me I do. There is always the nagging voice in the back of my head about it, and I can't help but feel like I have it because that voice is there.
I feel like I'm crazy, or irrational, but most of all I hate having a label on me that could be used to write me off or easily explain how I act.
It's like an excuse.

I'm not okay with excuses either.

This incident knocked my world off it's axis and I was forced to build myself back up again.
I know that without it, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

I wonder, would I still be childish and immature?
Would I be like the rest of the 19 year olds? Would I not understand?

Aside from all the ramble, I rarely share the story at all. It feels sort of liberating to finally get it out there, if only to a few people.

I know a few of my friends from 8th grade are still good friends of mine today. They remember when it happened, and sort of vaguely recall all of the changing I went through...but we usually laugh it off. Mostly I think this is to downplay how hard it was for all of us.

Thankfully I came out of it a better person, at least I like to tell myself so.

Today, all I have as a reminder for me is when I look in the mirror. When I'm very tired, perhaps you have seen, there is a dent that becomes prominent on my right cheek. It's been there now for about 6 years...I wonder if it will always be there? Also, I always notice this more than others I'm sure, but whenever I smile, my noise is crooked, and hooks to the left side. My mom wonders if that girl had broken my nose. I don't think she did, but when I was younger, my nose didn't do this so obviously...

Anyways, it felt good to finally share this story in detail...I never explain this, and I think sometimes I should. I think it would be better if people would understand.