How do you want it described? Logically, emotionally, metaphorically?
I am not who I was back then, but it still lingers in the way it has impacted my worldview and interactions with people. I continue to work through the past in hopes of a better future, one that is "normal" whatever that may be. Happier at least. But what one experiences in the past never fully leaves them, no matter what they do. You hear "just get over it", or "just focus on the future not the past". But the future is the outcome of the experiences of the past, so you cannot ignore these things. What I am today and who I will be tomorrow is due to the past I have experienced. As it is with you and anyone else.
Meditations, healings, cognitive behavior training, mindfulness - etc, etc, etc. They are all very useful with coping. But that is what it is, coping. One does not "get over" their happy memories. One does not "get over" their bad ones either. They learn to cope, re-program behavior and thinking, and move on to a future made by better choices.
Logically: There is no logic in despair. There is thinking, to be sure, but it is not logical. It seems logical. Despair has a way of twisting how we perceive the world around us. It takes the laughter of a group of people passing by and makes it a personal enemy - you vs. them. It twists the physical senses to observe differently. A well lit room is seen as, and remembered as, dim and darkened. Holding a hand over a flame is withstood despite the pain from it. If a person is pushed, the physical becomes stronger from the anger that suddenly bursts out of hiding, but then leaves the body feeling like it’s been hit by a semi.
Emotionally: It is the physical feeling of emptiness in the gut, like a hole. It is shielding yourself so that you are invisible to everyone around you so you can be alone even in a crowd. It is the absence of any other emotion other than the flare of pure rage that escapes its cage every 6 to 12 months because it cannot be bound and hidden any longer. It is feeling pure Melancholy and considering it “beloved”. It is cutting and using physical objects to pierce the skin so you feel “something” because you have lost the ability to feel emotions.
Metaphorically: Silence. The flipping of a page in a quiet room. The ticking of a clock under the full moon and nothing else exists. The wafting of a single curtain as a breeze brushes in from outside. Nothing else exists. Silence and a single event, nothing else. The breath escaping the chest that is heavy with sadness and nothing else exists. Sitting in the nothingness alone and quiet, the only world is the room you hide away in because it is safe. The door locked, the lights out, just the sound of your breathing in the void.
* As I said, it never quite leaves you no matter how much progress away from it you have made.
(Leaves a bright yellow rose in the middle of the darkness)
