We can probably all attest to the horrors that is the instagram algorithm. I am no exception. Lately instagram has pushed so much content on trauma, C-PTSD, AuDHD, Anxiety, Depression and BPD at me that it has me in a spiral. It's meant for information but I find that it's not just informing me but also overwhelming and overstimulating me. What's happening is I scroll through and I end up scrolling past so much content because it makes me feel heavy, drained and in a brain fogged. The other thing it's doing to me is that it makes me compare my tragedy with other people's. There are persons whose mothers sold them for prostitution, drugs and have physically abandoned them. People whose families have stolen tens of thousands of dollars from them. Some people have families with malignant narcissists. Reading and hearing those stories make me think about my own life and how "I guess I didn't have it that bad"
I've been thinking about my level of trauma and mental scars and even my diagnosis and down to the depression I'm currently experiencing. I feel like I don't have a right to experience any of it. I feel as though I don't have the right to be traumatized or hurt or sad because my mother and father were still there. The abuse wasn't as bad as others. I feel as though the things I've gone through mean nothing compared to the woes that some others have experienced. I told my friend this and his response was eye-opening to me.
He said "house slaves were slaves too." They had the privilege of staying indoors and not working the hard labor of the fields all day in the scorching sun. Yet they too were whipped, they too had their children taken away from them, they watched the white children they raised grow up to treat them like animals. The experience was slightly different but they endured trauma too. They had the mental and physical scars. I'm in no way saying that what I've gone through is like slavery. But what I am saying is that our experiences may be different but it doesn't mean that we didn't go through it, it doesn't make it any less traumatic, less relevant, less valid, less real, less hurtful. I still live with the fact that I avoid mirrors as much as possible because I hate my body and my face (courtesy of my mother). I have to live with the reality that my father chose to be with his other family and leave me and my siblings to fend for ourselves. I still have dreams of my brother molesting me. I have issues with my mind because of the things I've been through and I can't deny that.
I'm trying to be patient with myself now and remember that I'm fragile right now. There are times I take life like a champ and times where life is kicking my ass like a soccer ball. And that's okay.
Trudging through,
Dat Bahamian Borderline
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