Feeling Her Way Out the Darkness: PART FOUR

*CONTENT WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS DISTURBING MILDLY EXPLICIT CONTENT, (*) asteriks are placed to signify beginning and ending of said content.

Her therapist, Danielle, was a redheaded woman, soft spoken, yet her quiet words were poignant and to the point. During this hour, they were discussing issues of her childhood. When they first met, Sarah told her about her current situations and also her turbulent childhood, her parents, brother and sister, and the cousin who molested her as a child.Along with the Borderline diagnosis, Danielle added to it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sarah couldn’t understand how she could have PTSD, her experiences were not the same as what she saw on TV. She never felt like she was in an old memory and disassociated from reality. Danielle insisted that she possessed the characteristics of PTSD.

“I really have gotten over what happened to me as a child. I know it wasn’t my fault. It was horrible what happened to be. But, I decided long ago, that it wasn’t going to effect me.” Sarah said, “I am never going to do that to a child. I’ve moved on, I want to live my life, without feeling terrible for my childhood.

“That’s great, Sarah. You are a very strong individual, but even if you don’t know it’s there- it is really.” Danielle spoke in a soft tones, “it effects you. You just connect it to something else happening to you at the moment.”

Puzzled, Sarah smile, “I guess your right.” Deep down she didn’t believe it.

“Sarah, you had a very strict and rigid father, who was absent at the time when you were molested. A mom who buried what happened to you, in order to maintain peace with her family. Your sister raised you, and you had a brother who was abusive both mentally and physically.” Danielle peered over to Sarah, over her glasses. “No child under these circumstance would walk away from such travesties and not be harmed.”

“Yeah, but I worked through it, I survived.”
“True, but in order to survive that, you developed within you coping skills to do just that- survive. Many BPD’s suffer from child abuse, just like you, they had to separate themselves from their body- their mind lingered somewhere in the space of your mind- many kids report living in a fantasy, because reality was to awful to live in. Over long period of abuse, you just kinda get stuck there in your head. And as you grew older, those same coping skills that saved you- they are destroying the present self and the reality surrounding it. You are on a road to rethinking the way you think, you will learn to distinguish between fact and feeling.”

“Uh-huh” Sarah nodded.

“You’re going to have to take a hard look at you childhood- paying attention to all the sensations and thoughts happening in your head. Once you recognize how you felt and coped with such tremendous stress, you will be able to see how if affects you now.”

The bed was messy, Sarah had decided to strike against the bed. Because when it was nicely made, Sarah was tempted to crawl in and fall asleep. Throwing her purse and coat on the bed, she headed to the kitchen for a snack and some tea. She had quit drinking coffee when she learned that coffee heightened her anxiety experience.As the water boiled, Sarah sorted through her mail. Junk mail, bills, more junk mail. She tossed the pile of mail across the counter.

The kettle started to whistle, after selecting from a variety of teas, Sarah chose a pomegranate mango tea. Pulling up a stool, she sat down, striking a match and lighting her cigarette. The house was quite, as Sarah surveyed the living room, from across the way of the kitchen, it was too quiet, Sarah thought. The feeling of empty boredom started to rise up in her.Trying to mediate and soothe herself, she instinctively reached for the mail again, in effort to distract her thoughts.

Flipping through the mail over and over again, she stumbled across one of those mass mailer where the printed pictures of missing kids, in hopes to find them somewhere in the United States. Sarah turned the flyer around and saw a pair of familiar eyes staring back at her. The cut of this child’s chin was also familiar too. Everything about this child struck her, high cheek bones, think dark bangs and uncomfortable grin. Sarah realized she was looking at her own face as a child, above the picture it said “Have You Seen Me. Age last seen 7”

She dropped the flyer to the ground in fear, how could someone be looking for her? This picture was taken years ago, she was a child, but she was thirty two now. Her heart began to beat and her breathing shallow. Sarah went to the sink and wet her face with cold water. After she dried her face with a paper towel, she bent down to retrieve the flyer.There was a little girl pictured how had similar resemblance to Sarah, but it was clearly not her. Awash with relieve Sarah sat down to finish her tea, which was no lukewarm, however this didn’t bother her. She was still upset at herself for letting her mind play tricks like that. Laying her head on the kitchen counter she began to thing that even though she wasn’t the girl on the missing flyer, the little girl she once was, had been lost so long ago. And no one knew it, or maybe no one cared.“When did I get lost?” she whispered.

There car screeched to a violent stop, sending little Sarah slamming against the back of the passenger seat of her mom’s car. Sarah had been sleeping when the car she was riding in t-boned a car driving across the intersection. At first, Sarah didn’t know what had happened, she thought her brother and sister were playing games with her. She started to whine, calling out to her mommy to make them stop being mean. She was woken quite abruptly by the sound of her sister moaning in agony. Sarah turned to her left and saw that her sister was caught in between the drivers seat and the back bench of the car. Jessica was bleeding but Sarah couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. In a panic, Sarah began to cry.

“Shut up, Sarah, can’t you see mom has been hurt.” her brother Damian yelled at her from the driver’s seat. “Stop feeling bad for yourself and go get help.”

Sarah frantically tried to get to her mom, who was seated in front of her. Her unconscious mom was slumped over and held up by the seat belt.“Mommy!” she cried out. Reaching around the seat, grabbing at her mother’s sleeve, began to shake her. “Wake up, mommy, wake up.”

“Damn it Sarah, are you that stupid, did you hear me?” Damian yelled again. Sarah froze he was yelling at her again. Normally, when he started yelling like this, she knew she could run to her mom and hide behind her for safety. But today, her mom was hanging on for dear life.

Instead of trying to get out of the car, Sarah moved back into the corner of her seat, trying to melt into the interior. Damian turned his head sharply, his whole head was covered in streams of blood, the force of his head jerk made a flap of skin flip over and it started gushing out blood. Damian really looked like the devil at that moment.

“You stupid bitch, you can’t even get help, what good are you?” he was snarling now, his upper lip drew upwards into a disfigured scowl. “When I get out of here, I am going to kill you.”
“Are you okay?” a man’s voice yelled out. “You look bad, some one has called the ambulance already, help is on the way.”

Sarah looked up to see a strange man standing by the driver’s side window. Her brother slowly took his daunting glare off of Sarah and turned his attention onto the man.

“Nah, man, I’m okay. But my mom is out, and I don’t hear my little sister back there. Can you check on them?”

The man stuck his head in the window. “I tried to open your door, but it’s stuck. Same goes for the door behind you.”

The man looked at Sarah, “I can see your sister, she looks alright.”

“Not her, the girl behind me.” Damian growled.

As the man moved over to look through the window at her older sister. Damian said under his voice, looking at Sarah, “It’s too bad you’re not dead.”

Once the ambulance, fire trucks and police were at the scene, they had set her mom, sister and her brother free from the mangled wreck of their car. The front end of the car was smooshed in half the length of where it should be. Her mom, Jessica and Sarah rode in an ambulance together. Jessica had regained consciousness and was able to limp in the waiting ambulance, but their mother was still out. Jessica held Sarah in her arms.

“It’s going to be okay, Sarah, mom will be okay.” Jessica assured her.Sarah wasn’t so sure.

Nothing about her mom seemed okay. Just then her mom started to move around and moan.

“Excuse me sir,” Jessica said to the ambulance man, “It looks like she’s waking up.”

The man who was at the time cleaning out a few cuts on Jessica’s arm, turned his attention to their mom. Sarah was relieved just seeing her mom moving around.

“Will she be okay?” she asked.

“We don’t know yet, but this is a good sign.” he replied. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

Sarah’s mom nodded a little.

“If you can hear me, can you tell me who the President of the United States is?”

“Carter” moaned their mother.

“See she’s going to be okay.” Sarah jumped up and down.

“Shhhhh Sarah…the president is Regan.” corrected Jessica.

At the hospital, Sarah was separated from her family. A nurse took her to a bed, and examined her and deemed her to be in good condition, no broken bones, cuts, or damage.

“Is my mom okay?” she asked.“They are doing everything for her, she’s in the best hands right now. Don’t worry about mom, just get some rest, it’s been a hard day for you.” answered the nurse. She helped Sarah to lay down and laid a stiff white bed sheet across her. Just rest”

“I want my sister.” she cried.

“Oh I’m sorry honey, they just took her into x-ray. You can see her when she’s done.”

Sarah pulled the sheet tighter to her chin, she was scared.

“Didn’t you come in with a brother?” the nurse asked the Sarah. “Don’t you want to know if he is okay?”

Sarah turned the opposite direction of the nurse, and said, “No.”

Since Sarah had not suffered any major injuries, she couldn’t stay with her mom or sister, who were admitted for observation over night. The hospital was running out of beds, and had to give away Sarah’s bed to another person, who needed medical care. For a moment, Sarah stood in the hallway, amongst the bustle of a busy emergency room. She was cold. Everyone around her was busy and didn’t take notice of the misplaced girl shivering in the hallway. This was one of the first times, Sarah had an unnerving feeling of invisibleness. She sat down on the ground leaning herself against a door pain, and she began to cry. She didn’t know what room her mom and sister were, or even which way down the hallway she would start to go to look for them.

“Are you alright?” asked another nurse. “Who do you belong to?” The nurse’s face was soft and sweet, she looked to be genuinely concerned for Sarah. “What’s your name?”

Sarah proceeded to tell the nurse her name, and why she was in the emergency room. The nurse took her hand and let her to a group of desk, with more nurses sitting around them. The nurse sat her on a chair, promising to be back, went off to find out more information about Sarah’s family.It turned out that Sarah had gotten lost in the cracks, it was shift change, and that her nurse left for home without leaving word to anyone about Sarah.

This new nurse Laurie, led her to mom, who was asleep. Laurie explained that her mother was really lucky, she had suffered a concussion and a few cracked ribs, but other than that there was no critical damage, in the next bed Jessica laid there asleep too. Jessica had broken lots of bones in her right foot, a possible concussion. Her brother, Nurse Laurie said was still in suture room getting his head stitched up, she also pulled up a chair for Sara in between her mom and Jessica.

“Sarah, baby. Is that you?” her mother asked.

Jumping off the chair and running to her mom’s bedside, Sarah began to cry, she was afraid she would never hear her mom’s voice again.

“It’s okay Sarah, I am alright.

”Nurse Laurie came up behind her, “Oh we were worried about you for a moment Mrs. Dunn. I’m glad to see you talking. I know that this is probably not the right time to talk, but I need to know if you have any relatives near her that can keep Sarah for awhile, this really isn’t a place for such a beautiful girl.”

Mrs. Dunn, gave her the number of her brother who lived near them. It was late when they got a hold of the family. Nurse Laurie said that her uncle and aunt were at work, and that they couldn’t get here any time soon so they were going to send their eldest son to pick her up.


*******


A few hours later her cousin, Daemon, a odd coincidence that his name was strikingly similar to her brother’s, came and got Sarah. His car had a musty smell to it, combined with a cherry air freshener hanging off the rear view mirror. It was nighttime when they got to his car. Sarah had expected him to start his car up and head home.

But instead, he pushed his seat back as far as it went. He told her how awful it must have been to go through what Sarah went through. He knew exactly how to make her feel better. Did she want him to do it for her he asked.Confused and scared, tired beyond belief, wanted to go home, she didn’t know what to say.

Daemon didn’t wait for an answer. He leaned forward unzipped her pants and slid his hand in. She was shocked a creeping fear radiated from her body. Not knowing what to do, she froze. And when he was done, he asked her if she liked it. Sarah looked up at him emotionless.

It seemed that since Daemon had helped her to “feel better.”, it was no her turn to respond. He told her how to sit on the passenger chair and unzipped his own pants. She blocked out what was happening to her, and began to recollect the events of the day, her sister in pain, mother passed out, and brother bleeding profusely saying, “It’s too bad your not dead.” *******

The phone rang waking Sarah up, sitting on the stool, her body hunched over the counter, and on the counter was a large pool of saliva. Before Sarah could figure out that the phone was ringing, who ever was calling had hung up.Wiping her cheek, Sarah looked down at the missing flyer still laying on the counter. The little girl who looked hauntingly similar to Sarah stared up at her.“Don’t worry, I’m going to find you.” she said. “Where ever I lost you, I am going to find you.”