IS IT FOR ME?

Do you ever see your life in your mind as a movie? There’s maybe even music? Is it a comedy? Maybe a romance? Perhaps your movie changes gears from sweet and funny to sad to hilarious to a magical ending. The music is so uplifting and makes you smile. The movie brings back your fondest memories and sets the tone for your current reality. You pull from that a reference as to how you will walk through your day and handle the things presented to you. It feels mostly soft and warm and probably carries you through the days with some security.

My movie is quite different. It’s very dark, hardly any light. There’s a little girl crying in the corner and you can see the shadow of a man walking away from her. The scene changes and that little girl is again in the corner. It’s thundering and lightning outside but above the sounds of the thunder you can hear the pleading screams, “stop” “please don’t hit me anymore “ You see a woman; her mother, walk from the room. Her arm drops to her side and in her hand you see the belt. The scene changes again and that little girl is now 14. She’s crying as she drags the razor blade across her wrist and pushes down as hard as she can. Tears run down her face as the blood runs down her arm. Suddenly the color drains from her face and she slumps to the ground. It goes black.

It’s so bright! So incredibly bright! A hospital; so white and cold and eerie. She is curled up in the bed tears running down her face. Her eyes; those eyes look so sad and lost. She looks like she’s just given up. She’s refusing to eat and the toll that’s taking is starting to show. She attempts to get up out of the hospital bed but collapses to the ground and goes into convulsions. It turns into chaos! Doctors and nurses are running in and out of the room as codes are being called over the speaker. She lies there unable to control what is happening but can faintly hear all that’s going on around her.

There she is again but she’s older now. There’s such sadness in her eyes. She looks so thin and so frail. What has happened to her to take such a toll? She’s in the corner of a room but not one she has ever been in before. The parking lot lights shine through the slit in the curtains and you realize that it’s a motel. She’s bleeding. Bleeding from the cuts on her back, her face, her arms and from between her legs. There are red marks around her neck and her wrists. There in the other corner of the room are her torn clothes piled up in a ball. There in the reflection of the mirror, you see him. He looks like an angry man, a violent man. She begins to cry out, “please don’t kill me!” “I have a daughter.” Why do the pleas make him become angry again. He walks slowly towards her, fists clenched, and pulls her from the floor. He grabs her by her hair slams her to the bed and rapes her again. Darkness, only darkness…. It goes black again.

Sometimes the movie has different scenes but is always dark, abusive, traumatizing. The scenes rarely have much light and always have gut wrenching music. None of my movie clips provide comfort or security or reference for moving through my day to day with any kind of softness. What my movie clips seem to provide is a reminder to always be in flight or fight mode.I am in more stable surroundings now and seem to be surrounded by kinder, gentler people since becoming sober six years ago so can I possibly begin to stop fighting or running. Is it possible that a new movie can begin?