Changed

I was told recently by someone I have known for most of my life that I have become unrecognizable and different and that I had changed but not in a good way.

Changed? Me?

Perhaps the loss of a lifetime of friendships, family, the people I shared my life with has something to do with it. Maybe being forced to leave the life I’d built has affected me a little.

Me, a victim? No.

I was and remain damaged by a cult, by family and friends I once held dear.

The people that once populated my life have no idea what I lived, my children have no idea what I lived through as a child and young adult.

I spared everyone the tales of violence and memories suppressed.

I had been happy for a time.

The crippling night terrors and the debilitating anxiety have returned and persist whether people want to believe or not.

After all, they are not the ones awoken by screams of WHY and HELP ME!

I have been called a narcissist for wanting to protect myself, so it doesn’t hurt so much. Creating boundaries to keep the pain at bay is the only way I can get through life, and that one day at a time. A person cannot have lived what I have and seen what I have and not want to seek out some form of self-preservation. It is only natural to seek shelter from a storm.

So yes, I have changed.

But so have you.

So have all of you.