Why go back
when you can move forward?
I face this question
each day I breathe.
It's not always so easy
to answer.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
Keeps me looking back
to my past
behind my shoulder.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
Usually associated
with our war heroes.
The ones who can't leave
the battlefield behind.
I am not one of them.
I am just
an anxious
a depressed
in pain
person.
But I can't help
that I have it.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
My battlefield
was the school,
the classrooms,
the playground.
The babysitter,
the dark closets,
the dark rooms,
the basement.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
The anxiety
the migraines
the depression
the fibro
no sleep.
All lead back
to square one.
The abuse
by my peers
by my teachers
by my babysitter.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
Four easy letters
Four simple words
Lifetime in pain
from those simple things
from those not so simple things.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder.

Sometimes I wonder, how I will make it alone,
When all those in my life have refused to see what I have always shown?
The fact that I am ill, yes indeed it is true,
A mental illness chains me, physical illnesses too.

Depression has been a friend, for as long as I know,
Panic and anxiety, do you even need to be told?
Am I paranoid? Or is that what you want me to think?
In the next minute, I am dissociated, or cannot think.
I am over here and over there,
"Hello!" or "Goodbye",
What is seriously wrong with my mind?

Friends, they stay a distance, and I don't need them anyways,
Family? Forget it...
I lie and I lie.
I pretend that I feel nothing,
Nothing touches me,
But truth be told I am terrfied,
My heart, as if, bleeds.

Perhaps you've heard of Fibro,
Or IBS as well,
Maybe you know Chronic pain,
And a fatigue like hell.
Maybe your are familar with being in constant pain,
Maybe you know all the pills, over and over again.

"How can it be hard to get out of bed?"
"How hard can it be to ignore what's in your head?"
You won't understand, even though I've tried,
No I'm not special, especially when I'm chained to a bed.

I've been told I am older now, "Hurry up and get a job",
"You will be nothing when you get started and move on."
"Can't you just stop whining? Grow up and live life?
Can you just do something rather than sleeping and wasting time?"
"You worry about this, you cry about that, you want this but don't even try to relax."
"You are doing nothing but sitting around,
So what if you are sick? We all are, all year round."

I am the lazy, the black sheep the failure,
The worthless, dissapointment, the immature.
"I am the would have been, could have been, should have been, never was and never ever will be",
Did I really just quote a song? Indeed, I've felt what they really mean.

I am weak or stubborn, Ms. "why" and "Okay but how come?"
Believe me, there is no look or answer I've been given, that I have not sawn.


There is help out there, there are programs and places to go,
But who would want to love someone who struggles to get up and go?
Who may be sick for the rest of their lives,
Who doesn't even feel worthy of time?

People do what they have to, to go off and survive,
But the next time you want to go and ridicule someone,
Please know, they try...