The day I dread the most is almost at my door... The day my world turned upside down. September 13th 2006, a 17-year old version of me, still a child, saw what no one should ever see.
I can't believe 5 years went by already. It all seems like a blur, a bad dream I woke up from and that I'm trying to shake away. One day, and nearly just 60 minutes of it, that turned me upside down and completely altered me.
I do not recognize the person I was after the events. I honestly thank God for giving me the strength to live, even if I didn't want to anymore. No one realizes just how much anything can affect a person. For such a long time, I wished I could be like the other people I knew and just stop thinking about it, stop remembering it, stop obsessing about it. I couldn't. I envied those to who it didn't hurt like it hurt me. I was trapped with myself in my head, with social workers who didn't know how to handle it and who wanted to sympathize and who really tried their best at it, but who had no idea of what I saw and heard and felt. I was trapped in my head with family that wanted to support me and wanted to help me but didn't know how and they didn't know why I couldn't speak and why I wouldn't express how I felt.
Five years have past and I would like to believe that I am healed. But I have my moments, just like anyone, where I break down and remember everything, like a horror movie rolling in the back of your eyes.
But with the years I learned that I can be strong, I can will myself to be strong. I don't have to live with so much sadness and fright and pain on my shoulders. I can breathe. I can live and laugh and love just the same. But I can also cry. I am human. I lived what no 17-year old should ever live. I have seen with my own eyes wasted blood and tears in a place that should be sacred and peaceful for the teenager I was. I've seen chaos, I've been scared for my life, for the life of those who I loved, for the life of strangers. I've been afraid that I would never see my Mom and Dad again.
But I survived.
Five years went by, and I am living my life with the people I love, doing the things that I love. I can breathe again. I got the chance that others maybe didn't get.
Time flies, and although memories fade, they never go away...
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