“So you”re the pretty sister?” My middle school advisor says jauntily to me.

He smiles and walks away, with utter conviction he has paid me a kindness.

I suppress the sickening tsunami of self hatred, of self doubt.

My only worth to others is the falsified beauty that I brazenly present with a calm face.

A poker face, one without emotion that could be construed as “too much”.

Devoid of any real emotions except for sadness, anger, and fear.

These base emotions flood me, consume me, devour me daily.

They transport me to a nightmarish landscape that doubles as memory.

“My golden hair angel.” She would croon to three year old me.

I am punished if I do not please as instructed to, for her, for others.

Her anger and punishments have me trembling even 31 years later.

The rewards I received from her were somehow worse.

Imbuing me with a skewed sense of boundaries, anger, and self hatred.

I’m made wrong, something about me is different.

These thoughts ravage me internally, aggressively, incessantly.

Even worse, the whisper of, “it’s your fault you were abused.”

It’s my fault.

My face stays smooth, always….

That was until the physical pain came too.

Slowly it crept into my joints, so slowly I was unsure something was wrong.

I’m getting older, I say.

Then the extreme hives that burn like fire.

Not to mention the fear from near death anaphylaxis.

No more face glazed with dissociative calm.

I scream when I shower, from the agony of water hitting my vivid, raw, hive covered skin.

What I pray is the final boss level of what pain comes next has been the allergic parotitis.

Golf ball sized swelling under my ears and chin,

Compressed airways while I slept and transported me back to my punishments from Her.

For over one and a half years I wake directly into hyperventilation.

Anti anxiety medication did not come close to easing the terror I experienced.

Pain killers did not take the edge off of the pain one bit.

No solace in mind or body.

I hobbled where I used to sprint, ski.

My palor was that of someone on their deathbed, grey and sallow.

Sleep? What sleep? Panic was my ever constant companion induced by the pain in my salivary glands.

I relived my abuse over and over on a daily basis.

My rheumatologist told me to make my peace with these crippling conditions.

I sobbed the whole hour back home from Boston.

My escape from pain did not come all at once.

My new, and much smarter and compassionate rheumatologist had suggested my ptsd and internal pain was the trigger for physical pain.

I relearned how to soothe myself.

I did exposure therapy with a ketamine guided therapist.

I relearned how to breathe, then to enjoy deep breathing.

As my mind calmed, my body eventually did too.

Pain, not so distant at any given moment, lest the fear and stressors of life invade my mind, has abated.

I feel there is reason for hope again.

No day will be without some struggle,

But our interpretations of struggle decide our thoughts.

Then actions.

Then our physical reactions.

Breathe deeply.

You got this.

Everything is within your power to change.

All it takes is a different perspective. A different lense. A different angle.