Everyday I follow a routine not because it gives meaning to my life or because it helps me make sense of each passing day. And not even because it gives me a semblance of normality.
I follow this routine of cooking, cleaning, shopping, packing, driving, unpacking because I am expected to.
By virtue of being a girl/woman.
Sleeping in without guilt is not an option. It's a luxury I get to experience when I travel or when I am a guest at someone else's.
Even then I wake up scared and sweating because I feel like I've missed something important.
Years of verbal abuse for daring to sleep past 6 has tuned my internal clock so much that I wake up at 6 even when I go to sleep at 5.
I tell myself everyday that it's okay to sleep.
It's a type of PTSD. I can still hear abuses when I sleep in.
Sleep has become a luxury.
I've been told to stop complaining. To go and live my life. If only it was so easy.
It's not easy to even get someone to rent me a place without them resorting to policing my every move and action.
It's not easy to be safe when people know you live alone.
But I must.
I must stop complaining.
I must stop making excuses.
I must stop procrastinating if I need my sleep.
Everyday feels like going into battle. You never know where the attack is going to come from.
Somedays you win, somedays you lose wishing you had died in the process.
True , overcoming years of abuse makes you stronger. It also defines you as a person.
You never get over it. It becomes a part of you, making appearances when you least expect it to .
Anything can become a trigger to bring out those days of fear .
You can only hope to use it to get stronger. And as with many other things in life, you win somedays and lose other days.
And the injustice
I follow this routine of cooking, cleaning, shopping, packing, driving, unpacking because I am expected to.
By virtue of being a girl/woman.
Sleeping in without guilt is not an option. It's a luxury I get to experience when I travel or when I am a guest at someone else's.
Even then I wake up scared and sweating because I feel like I've missed something important.
Years of verbal abuse for daring to sleep past 6 has tuned my internal clock so much that I wake up at 6 even when I go to sleep at 5.
I tell myself everyday that it's okay to sleep.
It's a type of PTSD. I can still hear abuses when I sleep in.
Sleep has become a luxury.
I've been told to stop complaining. To go and live my life. If only it was so easy.
It's not easy to even get someone to rent me a place without them resorting to policing my every move and action.
It's not easy to be safe when people know you live alone.
But I must.
I must stop complaining.
I must stop making excuses.
I must stop procrastinating if I need my sleep.
Everyday feels like going into battle. You never know where the attack is going to come from.
Somedays you win, somedays you lose wishing you had died in the process.
True , overcoming years of abuse makes you stronger. It also defines you as a person.
You never get over it. It becomes a part of you, making appearances when you least expect it to .
Anything can become a trigger to bring out those days of fear .
You can only hope to use it to get stronger. And as with many other things in life, you win somedays and lose other days.
And the injustice
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