It might seem trite or cockamamie, and likely preachy, but these - the days when life feels bleak and my heart keeps freezing in my chest and my breath catches before it even starts - these are when I'm trying to learn to have hope the most.
When life is dangerous and scary and the future is ever more uncertain and terrifying, I give myself permission to feel lividly angry and hauntingly scared and say "this feels like the end".
But I am also learning to give myself permission to add onto that, saying "...but maybe it's not. I've survived hard, terrible things before. Maybe someday, all this pain will just be a haunting memory. And once it is a memory, it will not exist all the time. Like the other painful memories, it will eventually fade, at least on many days. And if it fades away, then I will want to have a future. And if I want to have a future, I should take whatever steps I can now to ensure that future is as kind and bright and fulfilling as possible, for me and all else I love."
Essentially, I'm learning that even when I don't have hope, that future-me will have wished I acted as if I thought I did.
This past year and a half is a time I've spent deep in self-reflection. I went from thinking myself incurable and doomed, spending (literally) every day debating ways to die, to finding an inner peace that I didn't know was possible, and planning for a future I once swore I'd never even want to have.
I think I was lucky -- most people can heal with the right support and time and love, I firmly that, but not everyone can. nor does everyone get the chance.
For me, it was damn hard and scary and miserable and it definitely got worse before it got better. But I had the time and space to do that thinking, and I did have the love and support of some of the most wonderful friends who could possibly exist in the world to start to heal.
I don't know what the future holds for me. I'm absolutely terrified of what could happen. But I think in some twisted way, I'm lucky to be able to be scared -- if I knew what I feared was a certainty, I would have no time to be scared about the potentials; only apprehension and space to grieve the inevitable.
I am lucky. I have $400 a month to live on. I have shelter. I have friends. I have my electronics with me, and I have access to books and comics through Libby. I have medicaid now. I have access to support services that I literally didn't even know existed before. I have SNAP, so I can get food.
I consider that four months ago, I was planning to literally crawl down the street myself (too hilly for the wheelchair to get around) to escape my abusers, and would've left with no plans for shelter, no money for food, and no money for anything else either. Four months before that, I lived knee deep in denying reality to myself, pretending that surviving off a meal a day was something I could continue indefinitely, that my family would love me if I just tried a little harder. Four months before that, I legitimately wanted to die. And around four months before that, I had a sudden health scare so bad that I nearly did die.
When I think about it like that, I consider myself legitimately blessed by whatever force or forces are or aren't out there right now. The future is unpredictable and scary. In a lot of ways, I'm even more terrified for my friends than I am for myself. Even for myself, there's very little I can realistically do to protect myself or stand up for what I believe in that I'm not already doing the best I can. But right now. Right now, this exact moment, my life is alright enough. Pretty good, compared to how it could be, how so many are suffering. I'm breathing air that isn't completely polluted. I have food. I have water. I am sheltered from the elements. I have electricity and internet access. I have love.
Yes, I am in pain. In the emotional and physical sense. I mean, my hip is subluxing right now, actually. It kinda sears, to be honest. It makes my jaw set and my hands sense. It happens often, but I still want to cry. But that pain means I am alive. And that I am alive means I could stay alive. And if I stay alive, there is a chance, however small and uncertain it feels, that the future might work out in a way I love, even if it takes me through hell to get there.
And I'll be damned if I don't want to see my story through to the end. If life's a stage, and we're all the players, then I intend to make it until the final curtain call.
I don't have hope. But I need hope to sustain myself. So I will force that hope into existence, the same way I force my body to move when the emotions hurt so much moving my muscles is like wading through molasses. The same way I force myself to take just one more bite when trying to eat makes me so nauseous I think I'm going to be sick. The same way I force myself to practice my breathing exercises and grounding exercises when flashbacks or panic attacks or fears threaten to drown my remaining tethers to reality.
I. Will. Have. Hope. I. Fucking. Refuse. To. Stay. In. Despair.
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