PTSD destroys your life from the inside out.

PTSD is like The Nothing inThe Neverending Story. Threatening to swallow your world until it feels like there isn't much left to live for.

Thinking You're Better off Dead. Feeling so f*cking worthless. Phobic of Your Own Mind. Not in Your Body. Helpless. Hopeless. The Nightmares. Flashbacks. Insomnia. Anxiety. Depression. Rage. The Inner Sniper. Always on Edge. Never Present. The Guilt. The Shame. Blurry Past. Dark Future. Broken Relationships. Broken Dreams. Endless battle.

Trust me. I get it.

I was both, Atreyu & Artax. I spent over 30 years fighting an inner war for my life.

My not-so-silent cry for help.

"I'm surprised you survived your teens."

- Mom.

Def not a goody-two-shoes-type. Scorpio Rising. Aquarius Sun. Here's to illustrate: My teens in bullet points:

Drugged & raped.
Assaulted & force-fed alcohol ending in alcohol poisoning. "20min later she would've been dead" - ER doctor.
Held up at gunpoint. Threatened to be shot in stomach.
Hit & run. Car crashed into my bike, threw me into oncoming traffic & left me lying on the street.
Turned to drugs & alcohol to numb the devastating self-hatred & overwhelming inner shame.
Did amazing at school though. (Eye roll).

The Black Sheep & Outsider.

Born in 1970s Germany.

My Iranian Immigrant father disappeared after getting my mom pregnant.

I was the dirty secret. The brown kid in the white neighborhood. Feeling disembodied. Like I don't belong. A heavy inner darkness.

A home marked by war trauma.

Opa was shot in the chest & part of his face was blown away by a grenade...The deeper invisible scars still rip through the generations.

We lived under one roof, but fragmented like shrapnel. Feelings? Not felt. Suppressed.

Opa was sent to the Russian front for refusing to join the Hitler Youth. Two of Oma's three brothers died in war camps.

Torn-open knees from falling off a bike?"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Can you blame them? Peanuts in comparison to anything they survived.

Laughter to avoid the pain. TV for distraction. Non-stop chitter chatter. Unspoken fear of silence. Like a henhouse full of chickens. Desperately lonely at the same time.

But: There were also many happy moments.

The Cycle Breaker.

I was also Bastian.
Because when a family is in denial of their collective pain, at some point someone gets born who's ready to feel & heal...