Mac, Hawco, everyone else,
Just a few notes that might help some. I've gotten to the point where I don't like to "pick at the scab" as it were. It'll never heal up and will ALWAYS stay sore to the touch. It wont go away, and it wont stop messing with your head. But it will give you strength if you let it. A wise person told me once that it's not what happened that is the problem, it's what it made me have to do to survive that's hard to live with.
Society teaches us that we are to behave in a certain way, and act a certain way in order to be accepted as a "normal" human. Once those "norms" are negated or removed from reality, we are left with a void. The human emotional balance is left without a basis to stabilize itself. I know, I know it sounds like psyco babble, but hear me out please, cause it helped me. The reality of that "situation" was that everything we were taught to believe in from childhood was trashed. Human life meant nothing. Sanity was something you held onto with a vice grip because the whole environment was insane. Nothing was real except the mind numbing fear and the need to survive another day, another hour, another minute. NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAD TO DO. I became the monster, and I'M GLAD I DID. There, I've said it! I'm not proud of it, and I don't brag about it, and I keep that monster chained up in a cage because I know just exactly what he's capable of if I let him out.
But I've learned to accept what he is. He is me and I am him. and if or when the situation ever presents itself again, I know that there is that strength available to tap into to do whatever is necessary to survive. And only those few individuals that were there can truly understand what that really means. Walk proud with your head high and DO NOT LOOK BACK. Cause in this world, brother, few can say they've actually been to hell and back and be telling the honest to God truth.
