What do you do when being broken is part of your identity? When you think it’s what makes you unique? Do you stop being special when you let go of the crazy?

Messed up childhood. Grew up too young. Recovered/recovering from Co-dependent relationships with your parents. Neurotic, anxious, people pleaser, type A personality. Fixing other people because you can empathize from being broken yourself… oh, and of course because you had to take care of your entire family growing up, you still do.

I want a better life. I want “normal.” I want to be loved and taken care of; to have healthy relationships. But what if that means giving up my individuality? Because no one else is messed up in the exact way that I am. But if I’m normal… will I just fade into the masses?

Hurting makes sense. It becomes a natural state of being. But having a taste of the good life and having that taken away? That’s fucking terrifying. It’s a version of PTSD where the stressful environment is your baseline, and if you change that, you jump at shadows and never know what to expect – usually driving yourself back to that darker place, which makes you frustrated and angry, but it also feels like home.

People recover from PTSD, it is an extremely treatable condition. But… how do you go about separating who you are versus how you responded to your environment starting at the age of 8? That is 25 years of conditioning and erecting core beliefs. How do you keep some of the crazy (because totally normal is boring), but completely rewrite the baseline of your identity so that you can live a healthy internal and external life?

Who am I without the mess? (And will I even like that person.)