All. Fall. Down. Again.

 Eats away.

Pain eats at everything. 

I used to say pain was clarifying, but - you scrape it out of its shell, throw it in a blender with trauma and exhaustion and I'd ask if any of you to describe it as 'clarifying' the same.  Sure, some kind of toxic positivity bullshit might tell you to think otherwise, but - I haven't found any of that useful.

If I could think myself out of this shithole, I would have by now.

Could you, given the same set of circumstances

Come up with a different solution?

Are you really so strong as you think?

Given absence, given shame, given humiliation or boredom or isolation...

I would offer that you would be just as weak.

Just as prone to reach for the nearest source of comfort.

I have to remove the circumstances.

This isn't about me being stronger, this is about me accepting my particular set of strengths and weaknesses and the things that make me who I am.

And finding better things to do with them.

I am not the problem.

My unique set of memories makes me especially sensitive and vulnerable to this unique experience.  

I can't change the memories.  I have to change the experience.  I can change, I can change- I'm not the same?