I’ve put off writing this post for several days.  I wrote it in my head many times.  I am now up at 3 AM unable to sleep with the feeling, God won’t let me sleep until I get it done…FINE (Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, Emotional.)

I continue to do research on coping with PTSD and all the cruddy things that go with it, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, anger, helplessness, frustration…tough list.  Every so often I want to walk away and leave it all behind me.  Enjoy my grandkids, my grown children are amazing people, explore learning to cook, renewed interest in crocheting, taking pictures, loving living.  Then I read a post that shakes me up.  I remember the darkness and depths of despair I lived in for so long.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2015/08/10/i-hope-you-never-understand

I remember how lonely and isolated I felt.  I remember how worthless I believed I was.  I remember how I wished somebody….anybody, could help me.  I remember feeling God was so displeased with me that He turned His back on me.  The words of my abusers screamed at me: “Ding-a-ling”, “stupid”, “the world would be better without you”, “You are the cause of the problems in our home”, “If it weren’t for you, we could have a better life.” Words washing over me in a tsunami of self hatred.  I believed their lies.  I hope you never understand the depths of despair I lived through.

However, I did live through those times.  Thoughts that still haunt me.  I add to this negative chorus more recent thoughts, “My PTSD hurt my family.”  “I passed my dysfunctional thinking to my children.”  “I am still screwing up.”  Why can’t this darkness leave me alone?

Darkness is a part of living as much as night time is part of the world turning.  This world is a symphony of darkness and light intermingled, intertwined, intermittent alternating between darkness and light.  I am writing this to share what I did when darkness totally enveloped my life.  I searched out and sought for one small light.  A pin prick of light can be a beacon when the darkness is deepest.

A single candle brings light to the darkest room.

I learned to focus completely on to one small thought for 5 minutes.  I learned I can do anything for 5 minutes.

Who’s going to feed the dog?

Who will take care of my children?

Do I want my children’s last memory of me finding me dead by suicide?

How can I tell my Savior, Jesus Christ, that I died because living was too hard?

Did I remember to feed the cat?  What if she’s hungry?

My counselor will be so angry with me if I give up? He threatened me with being tied down, if they send me to a psych ward because of a suicide attempt?

If I take my own life, I will do what my abuser commanded me to do, do I want my abuser to win?

Any thought, any speck of hope, anything to hold onto for 5 minutes.  I lived a lot of years, 5 minutes at a time.  I measure progress in years, not days, weeks, or months, years.  I am doing much better that 20 years ago.  I made a lot of progress in the last 15 years.  If I think in too small of a time span, I get discouraged when depression and anxiety gang up on me.

I continue to research and write about PTSD because I know how dark PTSD can be.  I took this picture of a mine shaft in Jerome, Arizona.  The Empire state building could be dropped down its depths and be lost.

I write so that perhaps, maybe, I can shine a light into those frightening depths and assure someone else that:

Their worth is not determined by someone else that can’t see their value.

This moment of intense fear, pain, discouragement, suffering will not last forever.

Their darkness is not so deep that a pinprick of light can’t penetrate.

I hope sharing my experience may be a pinprick of light to someone else….hang on for 5 more minutes then the next 5 minutes.

For another way of viewing this you can read my personal blog at http://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2015/09/i-hope-you-never-understand.html