Captive

I’ve been held captive,
In my own mind,

And a crucial factor in moving onwards,
Is to revel in the freedom,
Of looking forwards;

I’ve long been fascinated by other peoples’ stories,
Stories of people who have survived immense hardships,
Who have survived long periods of isolation,
And restriction of their freedoms;

It’s become conclusively clear to me,
That recovery from past traumas rests on at least these two pillars—

—Revelling in the freedom of now, and looking forwards optimistically,
—Calmly maintaining a non–judgemental viewpoint of the current situation;

And OCD has held me captive,
OCD absolutely has that power over your mind;

This overall period of trauma and captivity,
—The acute traumas which happened, and the time which they spanned,
—The ongoing mental captivity of dissociative mental habits and OCD ritualising,

That whole span of time, together,
—That is my period of trauma and captivity,
From which I aim to survive and recover;

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One such story which inspires me, is the story of Jaycee Dugard,
—If ever there was anybody who needed the ability to look forwards hopefully,
It’s her,

And from what I can see (and soon to read),
She does that exceptionally;

In her I see my own playful ability to revel in and make fun of the moment,
Despite what has happened,
And in spite of it;

That optimistic undercurrent,
Which has been held captive for so long,
By all of this;

It just became clear to me, in a moment,
That I can’t keep judging myself, for the actions which I may not have taken,
And a lot of this judgement has been enabled by lack of outside support;
I’ve had no consistent reinforcing of my own self-worth, and of my own progress,
In any structured way,
There’s no one person there to observe my successes and setbacks;

All of that, I’ve had to obtain through writing on here,
And become that therapist which I need,
With the help of other people,
And it is starting to pay off;
I’m slowly making the connections that I needed,
And there are so many people out there,
I look forward to meeting many more.

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Jaycee Dugard was held captive for 18 years from age 11 to 29. She finally regained her freedom on August 26th, 2009. She faced a long period of recovery to anything like a normal life, but recover she did.

With the knowledge of everything that she’d experienced in my mind, this one small moment made me believe that it’s always possible to move on from mental anguish (1m15s):

She has the strength and bravery to not let the past consume her future. And I ask myself— so was that worth it? By resolutely looking forwards and embracing what’s possible now, was it possible to achieve a future where she felt worthy, despite the captivity and the lost years which could so easily have consumed her with regret? And the answer is resoundingly yes.

I just consider the effect that her own positivity has had on me alone, in that one brief moment of daring to feel joy, and I have a lot of the answers which I needed.

We may not ever be as strong as Jaycee Dugard, nor try to claim to be, but for me she symbolises potential inner strength that you couldn’t conceive of having.

🌪