Anna Pritchard
Anna came to Survivors via NSUN. She says “I am someone who is trying to make sense of psychiatric oppression and familial abuse as part of a larger paradigm that is making common psychological roles harder to play.”
Give my feelings names
I am oppressed by grief
Let my grief be known
So that
I can greet it properly
And say:
I am not angry
Or afraid
This is not sadness in my belly, either
Or relief
The terror has passed and my rage has gone away
Now grief fills me.
It is an old emotion, a weariness
It presses upon me.
My blood heats, my organs burn
My fingers no longer tingle, that was heartbreak that did that to me
Heartbreak made my hands numb
A strange effect.
I remember screaming
Unable to cope, my mind was that of a child.
Never to be abandoned, that was my only desire.
Perversity made the leavings harsher
Do I bring that out in people?
That one time I screamed because I was left with nothing.
They had taken all my food, my precious things.
How did I survive?
My grief is a wave, I cannot drown.
It lives inside me.
It lives in my stomach and my hands and arms and legs.
Losing everything is the biggest fear
Greater than death.
We fear not having the means to live, the strength to survive
Now I live deathlessly with grief as my companion, reminding me that I lost everything, even my fear of death.
What is this possession made of?
Feelings warm my stomach
Make my viscera twist as grief melts
They warm a muscle made concrete
pitted and scarred by small cracks
It turns back into flesh
Melting in salt water,
Not tears but the sea
All-encompassing sea of belonging
Their possession turns my grief back on me like acid
It rises up and poisons me
My body is dying
Melting and coming back to life
Change is like dying
I have died so many times.
This love is toxic.
It melts me like sea water
Wearing away the hard skin
Smoothing the cracks
Their possession
Their terrifying attempt
To reduce me to a human being.
….