an Echo of Empathy09:31 Jul 21 2018
Times Read: 333
i have touched upon my Empathic gift before. in the past year i have gotten a little better at coping with it. i say coping, because controling isnt an accurate term for this. you cant "turn off" or "Turn on" empathy. however despite becoming better at it, i still have my moments. one such moment came to me last night while my love and i were out for a night walk. a man with his dog met us just outside the gas station we stopped at, and he seemed not only to be a nervous wreck, but visibly trembled, almost as if he was prepared to cower at any given noise that would startle him. he asked if we would watch his dog while he went inside. i agreed of course, and when he came out, thats when i felt it. the stirrings of emptiness, and the unmistakable taste of despair. he thanked us, and explained that hes a veteran with PTSD, and that his dog is a therapy dog. i told him i understood. i told him, while i dont suffer to nearly the degree that he clearly is, that i too have PTSD, and he seemed to take comfort in knowing he wasnt alone. we parted ways, but for the remainder of the hour and a half walk home, his pain tore at me. my girlfriend noticed something bothering me and asked, so i explained that sometimes a person hurts so much, or is so overjoyed, or is so angry, that it physically affects me, and i share their emotions and feel them as real as my own. i didnt tell her all of it however. its a little more personal to me, but the fact is, that when i saw that man standing there, cowering in the face of a stranger, i saw a glimpse into my past. i saw myself at 14, cowering and always watching over my shoulder everywhere i went, scared my abuser might be there. i also saw what could have potentially been my future. but for a twist of fate, i could stand here, a 25 year old man, and rather then clutching a guitar in my band room, i could be clutching my dog, cowering in a corner overcome daily by the abuse. truth be told, regardless of weather my nightmares happen often or not, it is very fair to say that i am a haunted man. i am haunted by what was done to me. i am haunted by what i COULD have been. i am haunted by what could be. and i am haunted by who and what i am. it hurt me to see that man in pain. is that what she sees when she looks at me? what do i look like i wonder, when she catches me staring and stroking the scars on my cheek, the scars i only see because i know to look for them. i wonder what she saw back in august, when she stayed with me for the first visit, and i jolted awake from my nightmares for the first time? i know what people say. "what does it matter, obviously she loves what she sees" and perhaps that is the truth, however the root of the problem is that i both love and abhor myself. everyone likes something about themselves, but when i look at myself and say" yea alright, cool i can do this, there is and always will be the voice of my abuser in the back of my head, whispering terrible things to fracture my composure. it rarely even shows. however i must say that it is very taxing mentally to hear your abuser in your mind, long after you ceased contact with them. it is mentally draining to feel like they still have a hold on you. that their words still hold merit in the inner workings of my subconscious, telling me that regardless of what i have done, what i have accomplished, and despite all that i KNOW to be true, that somehow i am wrong. somehow i was the bad one this whole time. my ex girlfriend wasnt any better and certainly didnt help any. especially after the breakup. about 1 year after we split i got a string of texts saying how terrible a person i was for building her confidence and self esteem up because i just broke it back down again. she told me i was an egotistical narcissistic piece of shit and that my abuser really must have messed me up because now i like to play games with people. you know what hurt the most? not the insults, or the rediculous accusations. the fact that she told me exactly what my abuser always said. " you play games with everyone". she implied that i was a liar. that i manipulated everyone. the reality? she wanted a specific answer weather it was the truth or not, and beat it out of me, and needed a way to mentally break me down. if you arent mentally strong you wont fight back. hearing that my ex felt i was messed up by the abuse really did a number on me. you know, it has been almost 10 years since i escaped the abuse. and still not a day goes by that i dont think of it at least once. i will never be able to forget it. i will never be able to enjoy certain things without the thought in the back of my mind that 9 years ago i wouldnt have been free to smile, or laugh, or have fun at all. i think it will probably haunt me all my life. but that is probably enough for now. until next time.
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