Triumph Over Trauma

No matter what life has thrown at me,

Even when I have fallen from all of life's difficulty,

I stand proudly pulling myself back up again,

A warrior who never gave up for her sanity to be regained.

Trauma, tragedy and illness could never kill my spirit;

My friend, if anything, it has made me completely fearless;

No matter how hard times have fallen, I never let my soul be destroyed;

With such suicidal ideation, such strength it took to avoid.

You cannot stigmatise or judge me until you know my battle,

For the arduous journey of each individual, another cannot grapple;

I hid the pain and suffering for so long and so courageously,

Because stigma and unfathomability remained outrageously.

This ignorance I let pass showing my own strength of character,

Why would I let my battle be impeded or condescended?

From overcoming so much my wounds became my wisdom,

I am changed as a person and now I will never be a victim,

Shining in the darkness like a star in the bleakest of nights,

It all startled me immensely, how I could survive the hardest of fights.

I have struggled so badly, wanting to end it all;

Yet even when I couldn’t walk I would force myself to crawl,

If you can relate to the depths of hell inside one’s own head,

Trapped with no way out, my demons surrounding my bed.

It was a struggle getting out of bed every single morning,

The nightmares for a depression, they were a forewarning;

It is impossible to hide from one’s own mind, therefore I was simply lost;

Insidious depression I was drowning, locked in hell’s cell with no key was the cost.

Screaming inside, pleading for God to take me away;

Unable to change reality, merely struggling day by day;

This battle was not my choice, it was an incredibly intolerable pain;

Too many storms consecutively, I simply went insane;

It is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so profoundly,

If you had walked the life that I have, you would not sleep so soundly.

I now find joy in still smiling when nobody thought it was possible,

Volatile and lost for so long, I spent so much time in hospital;

Strength being my only choice, I had looked for rainbows in the rain;

And for all of these challenges, faith and hope I did regain.

My struggles have merely changed me into my highest self,

A positive dreamer, a diamond in the rough, carved out by myself;

Now much kinder hearted, broader minded and independent; this my suffering did result.

Too much, too young, even for a whole lifetime, but now I am a much more mature adult.

Therefore I would not change my past, no matter how much pain or sickness;

Liberty to create my own happiness and my definition is courage rather than illness.