I've sat idle in this h*ll for far too long. The chaos, the pain, the hate. It's all too much. I've told you my feelings you dismissed them.

I told you my troubles you screamed and yelled and threatened.

You hurt me.

Yet I forgive you. not for you but for me.

I forgive the pain, I forgive the bruises, I forgive the abuse.

but I won't stay. I'm not going to put up with this. I don't have to put up with your problems that you are too immature to fix yourself. I love you as a daughter does her mother. yet you don't love me as a mother does her child.

I wanted your love so badly I almost killed myself to get it. But i'm done.

Leaving is hard. It's scary it's a new world of true unconditional love from a family I wasn't born to. It's not worrying for my mental and physical safety everyday. It not feeling anxiety when things aren't hard and full of fury.

Moving away is hard the internal battle i'm facing is even harder. However I have to do what is right for me. I need to protect myself finally. I need to love myself first. I will miss you and I will miss them, the smiles, the laughs, the good times that seem to be far and few between but I wont miss it enough to stay.

goodbye.

I had a beautiful Arabian mare, she was thirty years old and had seen many days of rodeos, play days and children's lessons. She had blue gray skin and fine white hair, and when the sun hit hers certain way like at dusk, she looked blue.

It was coming on winter that fall, she wasn’t putting on any weight and her winter coat wasn’t coming in very good. She was my lead mare, all the rest of my herd followed her.

I knew she wasn’t going to make it that winter and the kindest thing for her was to put her down so she wouldn’t suffer. I called my vet, took her up there and stayed with her until her last breath. It’s hard to say goodbye to such a sweet gentle soul. I still cry about it.

Little baby boy in a sailor suit, curly red hair, and big green eyes

Waving bye-bye to me, a newly learned skill, while I stood on the sidewalk and cried

Bye-bye, mama, bye-bye

Oh, Lord, what have I done?

Too late to change my mind. He’s gone and I’ll soon be forgotten

Replaced with a big house, new toys, a mommy and a daddy-

everything he deserves and needs

Everything I could not give him. All I had to offer was me

I was not enough. Always running, trying to keep up

Falling short, falling behind, falling, always falling

He would finally wake up in the same place every morning

Same faces smiling at him every day

Same hands reaching out to love him

Sanity traded for my insane gypsy life

It was a good thing, right?

Why won’t anyone tell me I was right?

Thirty years went by before I finally realized

The sacrifice I made was worth the pain

My loss was his family’s gain

My broken heart healed their wounds, gave them joy

In a sailor suit, with curly red hair and big green eyes

a slightly used, but well-loved little baby boy

This is the story of how I stopped being friends with a narcissist.

We became friends in 5th grade, and we were pretty close. As time went on, this boy became my best friend. He was Asian, Vietnamese to be specific. He was, and I hate to say this, a walking stereotype. Short, glasses, strict parents who own a nail salon, rich, straight A's, etc. I never really met his parents, since they were always working, but I did meet his grandpa, who, I may add, is the kindest human-being I have ever met. It was impossible to go over to my friends house without leaving with a bag of candy, whoever came to pick me up was immediately given a chair and a bottle of water, despite only staying long enough for me to get to the door, he even waited outside the school building every single time it rained, even if it was only a drizzle, with three umbrellas for the narcissist, our other friend, who was his cousin, and me. He showed signs of toxicity early in our relationship, up until 6th grade, he often hit me over the head with full water bottles, and he was always very possessive of me, especially when I got a male friend that he couldn't influence, and other stuff like that.

The only reason I stuck around was that he flipped between being nice and being a jerk, it was like a light switch. It went from 'I'm going to be a jerk to you because you tolerate it and I'm bored," to "Now you're mad so I'm going to poke you in the arm until you give in," right back to, "You've forgiven me, so back to being a jerk."

Freshman year of high school, however, this dynamic changed. He "got bored" with me, and was exclusively a jerk to me, provided he wasn't ignoring me. I tried to have a serious conversation with him, because I still cared about him at this point, and he laughed at me because my social anxiety clamped my throat shut. He told me he, "Wants new ideas for projects," and "Can't hear me talking to him."

At this point, I was done. I still have to see him at theatre to this day, and I still get bossed around by him, since he's the stage manager. But I don't have to deal with him most of the time, I'm exponentially happier, and have made way more friends. It may have been a challenging, and emotionally painful decision to make, but it was the correct one.

There will be a call today at 3:30... If not today, then surely tomorrow. It's a call I have been waiting for, and has the potential to color Life in radical ways. Please God let this be the day. The decision is not entirely mine to make.

03.06.2023

Decisions, Decisions challenge @Renebean10

A woman is screaming, my heart is too. She rushes to me as I enter the home and I see the lifeless body in her arms. A trust no one can earn, but a privilege my uniform provides. Her baby is dead and she is handing him to me to make the difference. I push back my tears so she can shed her own. It is time to work and there are no emotions allowed. I feel his stiff body, cool and breathless. Blood covers his mouth, that not long ago was pink and babbling with youthful innocence. His life had barely began and now it hangs in the balance, at the mercy of my hands. I resort to my training and provide all the necessary measures but it becomes clear we were called too late. As I pump on his small chest I realize there is nothing further we can do. Separation from heart and training is a must in this role. I know what I have to do, but who can tell a mother their baby is dead? My efforts were not enough and now I have to admit defeat. My badge will not save him and it will not save me.

The hardest decision I ever mad was trying to live.

Let me try to set the scene.

I go off to university to get the law degree my parents want and make them proud.

I... Flounder.

I struggle.

I spend every day hardly getting out of bed and wanting to kill myself.

I've felt this way before.

It's never been this bad before.

Why is it this bad now?

What changed?

My parents find out because I can't lie when they ask me whether I've eaten or bathed or gone to class.

They throw daggers at my face through the screen of my phone.

I am left alone with nothing but their criticism.

But it's fine.

It's my fault, after all.

I must get up.

I must be normal, again.

Good enough.

I must, I must, I must.

One year, two.

It's been... Hard.

Harder than it ever was.

External shame comes when you feel you aren't doing enough for you to be socially acceptable

Internal shame is... Real.

It isn't from them.

It's your mind, body and soul screaming at you to set yourself free.

It won't go away unless you do something about it.

But I'm terrified.

Fear has wrapped its icy hands around my throat and drowned me in a pool of apathy.

It's so much, so overwhelming that I must numb myself.

I hardly exist.

My grades get worse but I constantly promise myself it will be better next time, next time, next time, soon, soon, just keep swimming..

There is a moment.

There is always a buildup before the main event.

But this is the time that changes everything.

I watch a show, rotting away on my bed in my room.

A character I care about kills herself in the finale.

My breath catches and I realise

I can't keep living like this.

I can't keep...

Living my entire life waiting to die.

Hoping for it.

Pleading with the gods like a drunken, ruined fool to take this thing they call a gift from me.

Steal away my soul and leave this shell and this pain and these horrid, horrid memories behind.

I am terrified to spend my life this way.

So...

I make a change.

It's the most terrifying thing I've done thus far.

Because I actually did it, I suppose, not just whispering it in my head.

I left the university.

I left the course.

I resolved to go somewhere new.

If I am going to live and die experiencing the good and bad of being a human being,

I deserve the kindness of wanting to be alive, don't I?

At least a little bit.

I think we all deserve some self-compassion, don't you?

The external shame tries to drown out the internal one.

How dare I?

They'll laugh at you.

You're an embarrassment and disgrace.

Who do you think you are?

But the internal shame is my self.

I don't know which.

All of us?

Past; the inner child.

Present; breathing and broken.

Future; unknown.

It's all of us.

It is me as I was and am and will be, begging for a second chance.

Fear has had so much control over my life...

I wanted to be free of his cage, even just for a moment.

He comes back, of course.

I suppose he always will.

But I remember that moment.

The moment it clicked that I do not have to put myself through torture to make another happy.

Because they don't care as much as I think they do, anyway.

And I know I made the right choice.

So we'll continue to dance together, Fear and I.

But somewhere...

Else.

I got so used to the suffocation of familiar that I was ready to dissolve myself for it.

There are better ways to drown.