Llama Symphony

Time heals all wounds

It’ll get better

All you need is time.

Those are phrases I’ve used in conversations to friends that have been hurting. Those are phrases I’ve said out loud to people, but what if I don’t believe them. What does that make me?

I’ve always tried to be a person of comfort, I’ve always prided myself in being a good friend, maybe I’ll go a while without talking but nevertheless my friends know I’m there for them, through it all.

Yet, when I tell people it’s all going to be okay, I’m a liar. I’m a liar because I don’t think time does heal all wounds. I think that those wounds will always be vulnerable and fragile, and that they’ll open at a moments notice.

One thought, one song or a phone call and everything I know could come crumbling down. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to control it, it’s all part of human nature and coupling those realities with severe anxiety results in my constant stream of depression and panic attacks.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a little while, but I could never find the right way to phrase it, and today after a brief cry I finally figured it out. I had to just do it.

When I was fourteen I lost someone, I lost my best friend, I lost a part of me, I lost all hope when my Nanna died. Still to this very day, 11 years on, I cry, I cry like it happened yesterday, I cry like I was at her funeral only this morning. Every single time, and I mean every single time I hear the song that was played at her funeral I break, something inside of me snaps and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Every version of the song, no matter who sings it, those lyrics will be burned into my memories forever. I remember the exact lyric the exact moment in the song that they closed that curtain and she was gone forever. I remember everything I felt that day, I remember waking up with such fear and such dread that I couldn’t move. I remember sitting in the crematorium with my dad to my left and my cousin to the right. I remember seeing the look on my mums face, I remember the atmosphere and I remember feeling empty. It hurts me so much and to this very day I can not forget it… and I don’t ever expect to, it’s something I have to live with.

When I was sixteen I got my first boyfriend, and I’d like to say he was sweet and thoughtful but he wasn’t, I just didn’t know any better. He was my worst enemy. My life for those 11 months was a constant stream of endless nightmares. It was because of him that I drove away all of my friends, it was because of him that I almost lost my family. It’s because of him I have nightmares still, almost 10 years later. He threatened me, he hurt me and left me with emotional scars. I remember the feeling of his hand around my throat, I remember the panic of the moment I grabbed my shoes and ran for my life out of the fear that he was following me. My feet pounding on the ground in the rain trying to get away. I remember exactly where I was and what day it was when I told him it was over and he told me he was going to come to my place of work, jump over the counter and slit my throat. That night I had to call my mum to pick me up from work, because I couldn’t leave there alone. Even now, I’m scared, I’m scared that he’ll find me, that one day it won’t just be a nightmare anymore.

Life is full of hard times, and I’m by no means saying that my experiences are worse than someone else’s. Everyone copes differently, everyone deals with things in their own way and I… I don’t know how to deal with death, I don’t know how to deal with pain and hurt in this capacity.

As an atheist I don’t believe in a god, I don’t believe in heaven or in hell, but I am afraid of death. I am terrified that one day it’s going to be over for me, this thought overwhelms me to the point where I can not breath, where I am afraid to be inside of my own head. I need to believe there is something other than nothing at the end, but I can’t.

In the end, it’s mother nature’s twisted tale that tell us all when it’s over, when it’s time.