Sitting in the cold on the hard floor, back pressed to the walls. Knees hugged to my chest, chin on my knees, trying to control my shivering. Cold. Alone. Afraid.

This is the part of my soul that stays sequestered in the depths of my brain. Outwardly, I put on the brave and controlled face of a 34 year old, but this part of my soul feels like a helpless child. I’ve been increasingly aware of this part of me since not long after my trauma began. I’m fighting to escape my situation, but the odds seem virtually impossible to overcome, and I might never be free. It took place over a decade and there was so much to my situation that I can’t sum it up in less than about 60 pages, so I can’t even easily share my trauma with anyone, which is isolating in itself.

Usually my consciousness keeps this part of my soul buried, in a place that I might forget about it or block it out completely if not for the constant dull ache. But occasionally, in my more vulnerable moments, the awareness of this part of my soul rises to the surface, and I feel it all as if I were nothing but that vulnerable helpless child. I feel ashamed that part of my soul is like this, like all of me should be the strong, resilient 34 year old adult that I’m supposed to me.

But no matter how how much I try to strengthen my mind, or suppress these types of thoughts, as much as I externally try to have myself together and present myself as being externally okay…

That little part of my soul stays unchanged in my core. Cold. Alone. Terrified.

Friendship doesn’t seem to help, talking doesn’t seem to help, not beyond transient superficial feelings of relatedness. It seems that this part of me is stuck there, and it won’t heal unless the right relief comes along. I sometimes imagine someone finding me in that cold, dark corner, coming to sit down next to me, and putting their arms around me. Whenever I imagine it, this person is a woman, a stranger. I look into her eyes, and in the far depths of her soul I see a part of her soul that resembles the childlike, terrified part of mine, huddling alone and shivering in her own corner. I get up, walk over to her empty room, sit down beside her and put my arms around her.

We both find ourselves in a new corner now, identical to our own individual ones, except equidistant between us. As we sit there, we hold a light between us. The room is still empty, the floor is still hard. But suddenly the corner isn’t so cold and dark anymore, and gradually I stop shivering. Beside me, I feel her stop shivering too. And we both start to feel a little stronger. There’s light in the world, where there wasn’t before.

Can this ever be more than a figment of my imagination, a pained hopeless fantasy? I don’t know. The one time I ever started to have mutual romantic feelings with someone, it did seem like there might finally be some warmth flickering in the cold depths of my soul, which I guess is why I continue to imagine a woman in my scenario. But so attached was I to that brief reprieve that I chose to accommodate and look past some warning signs that I should’ve heeded. The loving feelings, while only in their infancy, were such a breath of warmth, that occasionally part of myself still wonders whether I should’ve just kept enduring the bad so that I could experience more of the good, but I know in my heart that staying would’ve eventually led to disaster, and my having lost even more time to being taken for granted.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this; I guess it’s borne of a recent extra strong flare of vulnerability. I’m probably going to try some dating subs out in the near future to see if I can actually find a fellow traumatised person to come sit beside me and I beside her (if anyone knows of any subs for that beside foreveralonedating, please let me know). It’s not that I’m looking to fall in love with the first girl that comes along; I’ve had enough female friends and colleagues that I know I can only feel something if there’s some real compatibility there, and I’m also together enough to be able to cope with romantic rejection, and it’s important to me to find someone who feels the same, just to make sure that bonding over trauma stays healthy and supportive, and that the other person will still value me for my interaction even if I don’t feel anything romantically or vice versa. But I want it to be okay to actually develop such feelings, which is why I’ll probably post in the dating subs eventually.

I guess part of me is also wondering whether anyone, man or woman, can relate to the thoughts, feelings and vulnerability that I’ve mentioned above, which is why I’ve posted here. I’m pretty sure there are those who can, but I’d be interested to hear other’s experiences, and how it’s felt for them.