It is a dense fog

As thick as pea soup

Struggling to suffocate me

Eyes unable to see mere inches ahead

 

It is a storm cloud overhead 

Ominous and dark

Filled with rain about to drown me

And lightning set to strike fear into my heart

 

It is a parasite

Slimy, small, deadly

On a path to devour my heart

And leave an empty nothingness instead

 

It is a voice  inside me

Saying I will never succeed

I will never get better

I might as well just die

 

It is an invisible disease

Depression. Anxiety. PTSD.  BPD.

Labels that follow me through life

Determined to bring about my ruin

 

I do not cough up blood

Or waste away

Or need a special parking spot

Or an oxygen tank

 

Instead I am hollowed out

A shell of a person

"Poor thing"

Loathing pity yet blind to love

 

I'm called a product of a childhood trauma

Of the worst sort

One I will never recover from 

Or so they say

 

I so desperately want 

To stop being a victim

To live my life

To refuse to let this define me

 

But how,

When I am, when I can't, when it does,

Am I supposed to do

That?

 

How am I supposed to move on

When I don't even know

Who did this to me

Or why nobody helped five year old me

 

But what I can do:

I can learn to be a survivor

To live with it

And to let it be part but not all of me

 

And even though I

Am not there yet

And may not be there 

For years

 

I will keep trying

I will keep moving

I will fight 

 

And I will survive