Freedom

Pain, a feeling of unkempt emotion falling in black tears.

Tabitha had days when she could cope with her past. She would wake up, beat away the fog in her mind. Keep busy. Always keeping busy. Work, writing, painting, cooking, cleaning, moving forward in a bid to keep her past from crashing through into the present.

Until there was nothing to do.

Sometimes she felt ashamed of the tears, like they were a weakness, to be pushed away. Why did she think of her childhood? The bullies cruel words? Her inability to fight back?

The lack of control always tugged at her thoughts.

‘You need to say after me,’ her therapist said. ‘You are not to blame.’

‘I am not to blame,’ she said, but her voice was weak, like she didn’t believe herself.

‘Louder, take control of your fears.’

‘I am not to blame . . . I am not to blame. I am not to blame!’

It felt good to shout those words, a freedom she hadn’t felt in a long time.