The Times They Are A-Changin'

Reblogged from The Nature Of Storms:

As many of you may know, I've started the seeking africa blog as a kind of outlet of my recovery from SA, PTSD and depression.

For the most part, I have recovered. From the first moment the rape happened though, my life is inflicted by small and big ripple effects, and I've got a lot to work on.

Changes

I'm moving IN, with my boyfriend, and that's not just a move.

Read more… 598 more words

Hey guys, so I've been going through a lot of changes (a lot of which I will blog about soon), but the biggest of all is that I'm moving. On Sunday, I will be in another country, another city, moving in with my boyfriend, and starting a whole new life. I will still write in this blog as part of my SA recovery, but I felt it was a time to start a new one, one to reflect not on dealing with my past, but on putting together my present and building my new life. I'm sure it will bring a lot of challenges, but also a lot of beauty. I feel it's only fitting to separate it in a new blog. I hope you guys enjoy it. Always yours, Atlanta

On SUICIDE thoughts: DOs and DONTs about talking to people having such

So I’m a little bit upset at people in general right now, or may be at the people from my country. I was reading the forum of one women’s magazine of my country(I was looking for one article, and found some topic in the forum), and there was a topic about a girl that wanted to kill herself. She consequently tried, but thankfully nothing happened. There were 12 pages of comments. I’m still on page 2, and already wondering, if I was at the place of that woman(girl? not sure how old she was) whether those comments wouldn’t push me further into it.

Few months back, in a blog I was reading in my native language, a girl admitted to having been raped. In one of the comments someone told her she probably didn’t fight hard enough if it happened anyway, that she probably opened her legs and waited for the guy to finish.

Really, people, think before you say something.

Trauma, depression, cutting or desire for suicide are not a joking matter.

Money Matters

For a long time this past year, I’ve worked on myself.

More particularly, I’ve worked on overcoming my issue with rape. The summer when it happens, my whole universe snaps out of it’s axis, and the world changes for me. I know somewhere deep in me, life as I know it is over.

Now, it all sounds almost bearable. For more than half year, I have given everything I had to make it bearable, at first so deep in depression that it was hard to make myself get out of bed, let alone do anything else.
Finally, I am able to work nicely, to get up in the morning without feeling like I’ll break to pieces if I go outside, and to see my friends, without constantly having the feeling I’m living 2 lives at the same time.

When I first begin recovery, I’m touchy on everything around the issue. Pronouncing the word rape for a first time after the fact happens only after I have cried in a bathroom for 5 hours. And somehow, now that I’ve almost resolved that, I discover I’m almost as touchy on the subject of money.

The Girl who said she was a Boy

Reblogged from Raising 5 Kids With Disabilities and Remaining Sane Blog:

Marie, who is profoundly deaf, came to live with us at the age of 7 years old.  At first she appeared to be your typical “tom boy”, but then she began to exhibit symptoms of being something more…symptoms of being an actual boy.  Quite simply, she TOLD me she was a boy.  She would only wear boy clothes, (including boy’s underwear.)  She refused to use the Ladies Rest Room so we found the family and unisex restrooms if she had to go to the bathroom in public. 

Read more… 774 more words

Exceptional Story! Shows the depths to which our mind goes to protect us. I love that this one has a happy ending. It's uplifting to read, inspiring.

Forgiveness pt 2

This week, I stumble upon the next step in recovery- sort of making amends part. When I broke down in the summer, I was in too bad of a state to be able to handle the work I had, which was for an internship. I had done well on that internship so far, but in the last week of it I had to finish one project, and I was too busy with PTSD, panic attacks and flashbacks, not eating and not sleeping…every time I started working on it, I broke down to pieces, because it was in my major, and it was supposed to be the thing I’m best at, but I felt like a ghost. Here’s the thing though.

I dropped the project and all of it for months. Not saying anything. Just…stopped. Figuring out how to continue breathing seemed more essential at the time.

Getting through the Storm

“Right now, you aren’t making difference between fantasy and reality.” I look at the counselor, not so convinced.

The reality of what happened, it’s engraved in my memory, in every scar on my skin, in every night I wake from nightmares. What does she know?

*

That was 2 years ago, when I went to a counselor, to get help so that I wouldn’t want to drink all the time anymore. It helped, even though I never told her that the main reason that I want to drink is the broken memories I had of my rape, and trying to move on as if it never happened.

*

People are learned constantly that we need roots. Familiar things. That in a hard situation you have to try to contain your life in normal routine. When we get into a situation which is hard but we have no control over, we hold onto what we know, until the storm passes.

But no one tells you what do you do if the storm doesn’t pass.

*

Let’s rewind a bit.

That summer. 

2. Starting recovery

Sometimes, you start the right thing for the wrong reason or for no reason at all. Sometimes in the midst of a nightmare, you find something to hold on to. In retrospect, the reason doesn’t matter. The reason has no meaning when that one thing is the one thing that keeps you holding onto life.

Until things get better. Or if they do.

         It’s the past August and I have just realized, my life is falling apart. I have just graduated, I have an internship at a great place, and I’ve just recently fallen in love with the perfect person for me(we are still together and crazy for each other)- so you can see how that would come as a surprise. But when you realize that you’ve stopped caring enough to brush your teeth or hair, food has become a chore, and you cry all the time…that has to give you heads up.

I’m breaking down. You’re too weak to deny it anymore.