Marie-Anne Palmer
I’ve recently (this past 6 months) been diagnosed with PTSD and Bipolar II, through childhood abuse.
The Child Caught in the Past
I am the child within, caught in the past,
In a land of haunted dreams,
With monsters I call Mummy and Daddy,
“United we stand”, “The formidable team”.
I shatter my window, letting the moonlight in,
Not to destroy something fragile and thin,
Just to feel the breaking skin,
A quest for control, to escape from within.
But all I can do is silently scream,
Crawl out of my cell; keep screaming then return,
No one is listening, no one will tell,
But now I can hold the sparrow and mend its wing,
Perhaps throw another coin into the fairy wishing well.
Thinking of all the ‘hard love’,
The break of trust - over and over again,
My friends ask “when did you first make love”?
Pain, sadness and shame I felt then,
Anger, sorrow and self-hate I feel now,
The repeated question I shout out in silence, why?
How could you hurt me?
Why didn’t you want to stop?
How could you say ‘nobody will ever want you’?
Why tell me it was normal in that time line?
Why leave me to wither and drop?
Why couldn’t you love me, cuddle me & protect me?
Why didn’t you want to stop?
We grew up in a make believe world, My Sisters and I,
My eldest ‘The Walton’s’ the perfect task she has to
try,
My middle ‘Rapunzel’ locked in her tower;
There she remains, stuck with their lies each and every day,
Me? For it’s ‘Snow white’ 30 years for my prince I
had to cry,
“Cleanliness is next to godliness” your repeated advice came
I’m clean now Mummy, will you love me all the same?
I wash and scrub the stain of the past away,
The pain feels good, “no pain, and no gain”
My home is clean and tidy; each and ever day,
The “cess pit gone”, “No shit hole” to be seen,
Thanks to Daddy’s regimental bed packs,
The scars and shame still remain.
No matter how much disinfectant, bleach and spray,
‘Daddy’s little soldier’; the stench of my past here
to stay,
Off to court! Mummy and Daddy we betrayed,
The monsters cower now, not my sisters & me,
United we stand, divided they fall.
More therapeutic painting perhaps today?
My future is bright, my prince came.
Marie-Anne Palmer, 2006