The days go by. Slowly. One by one. Life travels sometimes at what feels like a snail's pace. Everyday is just another trial of what I can really get through. Or another test of whether or not I can make it. 

Some days, I wake up and I won't to put a bullet in my head. Getting up feels impossible. Survival feels improbable. I have a hard time seeing any reason to be alive anymore. I feel hopeless. Worthless. Like a shell of a human being. I'm not who I used to be. I'm nothing like who I used to be. I used to be happy and full of life. Now, though, I'm scared and constantly wanting to disappear. 

There are these brief moments, however, when I feel okay. When I feel like the days will go by and I will one day be normal and adjusted. There will be a time where the nights go by without fear or nightmares. A time when I'm healthy and healed and what happened was just a memory rather than a defining part of my entire character. I just know, though, that that simply is not realistic. I will never get there.

Some days, I can only see my future as painful and fearful. A time where the days will continue to go by slowly. Each day feeling like a lifetime. I had a dream once, where I was 40 years old and still the same. I was still scared and jumpy. In my dream, I was just as lonely as I am now. Just as isolated. I lived alone. I was destined, at that point to die alone. 

There are brief moments, though, where I can see potential. Potential for life to be new and different. Where I can be something more. Where I'll fall in love and get married. Have a family and pets. A house with one of those picket fences. I have the teaching job I always wanted. I work everyday and I'm happy. I'm okay. I don't cry at night. I don't get scared in the dark. I don't feel alone in the days. I'm still young-- I technically have time. 

I just know that that reality is too idealistic for myself. I know that can't be me. I know that I'm destined to forever be confined to my own prison of fear. It's torturous. No one understands me. No one understands why I'm so afraid. Why I'm so alone and purposefully isolated. I can't tell if it's better that way or not. 

Once people profess to understand you, they make assumptions and they make judgements. They make suggestions and intrude on your life. They tell you what helped them assuming you're the same. Or they force things on you. They tell you that it's your fault you're like this. That you need to move on and to get over it. They don't realize that you've been trying for trying to do just that for years.

Get over it. Now that's the real dream. To be "over it." But, again, I don't think that's a reality that I'm going to be able to achieve. 

The days will continue to just go by. One by one. Day by day.