19 year old me

I was thinking back to what would have helped me when I was a lost nineteen year old. There was always the huge undercurrent feeling I had of something was wrong. Maybe I was wrong. The deeper thoughts that played like a muffled irritating radio: "I'm autistic that means I'm wired wrong", "Having hemochromatosis means my genetics are wrong", "My Mother did not keep me, maybe I'm not good enough". I could be here all day talking about the thoughts that swirled around my brain. 

The world I was living in wasn't the world I wanted. And, the life I was living I did not want. But, I did the best to survive with the tools I had. Albeit very destructive. I was self harming, trying to take my life, engaging in an eating disorder, partaking in reckless sex and running away from home constantly. 

I was so chaotic. I was a ball of rage internally, that made me feel like I was on fire. I felt so unbelievably wrong in my own flesh and skin. I was trying to kill what what hurt, me myself and I. I was showing externally how I felt internally. I never knew how to put into words how I felt because no words felt it gave it justice. 

Nobody could argue with what I did to myself and ultimately I was sick of being told I was "special", "chosen", "Autism is a superpower" when I felt none of that.

I had this desperate longing for love, connection and this immense fear of being abandoned. Nothing filled the void. I constantly listened to the song Need You Now by Lady Antebellum because I didn't know how to do it without my Mother. 

During my chaotic mess of a life, all I wanted and craved was to be held by her, like a baby. I couldn't regulate my own body, just like a baby can't. I don't know how long I'd need to be held for maybe a day, weeks, months but I just didn't know how to care for a body that felt like it was on fire. 

No amount of psychiatric medication took away my pain. Even when I was dosed up to my eyeballs and my Adoptive Mother didn't recognise me in the psychiatric ward, where I spent months locked up. 

I remember constantly trying to bargain with myself "I'm here and I'm safe" "Everything is going to be okay", "Just hold on", "This will pass" and other phrases along those line. But I felt everything but that.

 

How do you care for a body that's on fire? How do you tolerate all the feelings and just stay in it? How do you talk about your pain and hurt when everyone else around you tells you, you are lucky? How do you accept yourself? I guess time was what helped all of these things for me. Even though I didn't feel I had time on my side because everyday felt like it would be the last. 

I wish I could tell nineteen year old Becca that in a years time she'd finally get contact with her Mother and that yes, it was the hardest thing she does in her life (so far) it also heals part of her heart. That she'd not feel like a burning ball of fire constantly. That eventually every moment of everyday wouldn't constantly feel unbearable.  But that yes still at twenty four she still is plagued by her demons but is slowly working through to build a life she WANTS for herself.