*Could Be Triggering*
*Not A Soul Inspiring Post*

You are sitting in a classroom and there are certain elements of your story that people know...perhaps you bounced from foster home to foster home...you experienced so many negative experiences...

They ooh and aah over the story...amazed that you have found your way to whatever path you are on...They can't believe you survived all that you went through...

Suddenly, you respond very differently than you have in the past...you are thoroughly pissed off that this IS your story...that you are somehow a phenomena that you have overcome...

You want to yell at them and tell them that this story is NOT what you chose...that there is no golden ticket when you have unwrapped all the experiences only to find that you are marred internally...

They tell you that you have been through so much and that you could tell your story (oh, if they only knew...they are floored someone could make it through what they do know of the story)...and help so many others...

They mean well...but you want to tell them to just shut up...this is not the story you chose...the life you chose...you are not the author...

They don't know you are in therapy to deal with all the sh**...they don't know you found your mother overdosed...(nor do they really know what that does to a three year old)...let alone the years of abuse...

They see the the star shining...the high gpa...the scholarship offers...the career path chosen...the words, 'you are amazing' and you really want to reply with "F*** you..."

Amazing is not going through what any of us have gone through...you have NO choice...when you are a child...the only choice is survival...so you develop maladaptive ways to cope...you disconnect from yourself...you close off from the world and find the safest place to be is ALONE.

People think the hardest story is the greatest story. How about the chosen story is the greatest story? After all we go through to maintain some footing in this life...and we struggle with choice because as little people, we were never afforded that option.

So, now you have to overcome LEARNED helplessness. You constantly are getting slapped around by the things you learned just to make it through...

You used to listen to the words people said about you being so amazing and now you realize, amazing wasn't a choice, survival was the choice.

Survival is still the choice. Amazing is the furthest thing from our mind when we are trying to hang on one more day.

We are trying to survive, still, after all these years. Sure, we are no longer there in that environment where terrible things happened, but it's worse. That environment is now within us. The internal world is now the reflection of what the outer world was. All the emotions, horrible memories are within us. We carry them with us. We try to push them away. Some things are so deeply ingrained in us that we can't even see or hear what is vital for us to break free.

So, to hell with amazing. Right now, for me, it's about survival.