This is Triggering

Bourbon over on Crazy in the Coconut just posted a moving tribute to a fellow abuse sufferer who ended her life. I wasn't acquainted with Sara; apparently after being bullied on her blog she lost the will to continue fighting for herself.

I just read the short post her husband wrote to inform everyone of this tragic event. Heartbreaking doesn't begin to express it. Aside from a loving husband she left behind a child.

This isn't about me, or you, but a real person who suffered unimaginable pain and shame and sorrow from the tender age of 2. And yet, this is about me and you and other victims of the reprehensible crime of sexual abuse. What affects one of us affects all of us. We're all so wobbly at the best of times; a tragedy of this magnitude has the power to crumble our world. John Donne said, "Any man's death diminishes me . . . " This is what I'm feeling right now in the aftermath of reading Sara's story: diminished. It doesn't matter that I never knew her, I still feel a jolting shockwave throughout my system.

Have you ever asked yourself, what would make me throw in the towel? I know I have, and I've come awfully close to that gaping chasm from which there is no return. And you know what? I've no idea what would be the last straw for me. I don't think any of us really know what would be that one thing that swings the balance toward the black abyss.

I'm saddened and angry, and scared. I'm scared for me and for my fellow survivors. We walk around trying to live as normally as we can, carrying with us in our fractured minds everywhere we go horrors no words can truly express. We may manage, for the most part, to sound okay on our blogs. We even share humor and little tidbits from our daily lives and maybe in doing so give the impression that our DID isn't a big deal. We seem to be handling it, so how bad can it be? I've been told I have a strong functioning DID system, but yeah. There are times I don't want to go on. Times I have to force myself to consider everything I have to live for, and even then it's a stretch. Even then, with my kids and grandkids to consider, it's difficult to scrounge up enough will to keep on keeping on. If it's hard for someone with a strong DID system to stay away from thoughts of suicide, what must it be like for the Saras of the world who have it so much harder?

I'm trying to process this, trying to imagine what it must have been like for Sara to live inside her skin and her mind, with all those horrible memories and alters who were out of control.

There isn't any neat way to end this post. No words of wisdom or handy-dandy adages. We live in a broken world, and some of us have been hurt beyond what anyone can begin to imagine. From what I've read about Sara, she fought hard and long. She tried. And I think that counts. I think that means something that she battled her hardest for as long as she could.