Wonderland Wanderess

  Trigger Warning: this short memoir contains graphic and candid recollections of a traumatic death.  It also discusses suicidal ideation and explores the darkest crevices of grief.  Some may find this content distressing.   Disclaimer: while the events and scenes of this memoir are all factual, the letters and dates have been fictionalised.  The dates are, however, my best estimate at the approximate point in time when each of these pivotal stages of my life occurred.     "The world was rumoured to be ending in 2012... in many ways, mine did."     05/02/2012 Surely this is a nightmare and soon I will awaken; you cannot truly be gone. I close my eyes and try to envision your once handsome face — those luscious lashes, twinkling brown eyes and gorgeous smile, framed with perfect olive skin—but that face is now gone, replaced with horror and gore. When I think of you, my mind conjures only the image of your battered face, bloody and disfigured; eyes closed, their sparkling ligh

My dark passenger.  That ever present voice, quiet and gentle as a whisper at first, 'til it spins dread and fear like spider webs throughout every happy moment.  Then it crouches in the shadows, in the wake of its deception, waiting to pounce and sink its claws in for the kill.  My heart rate increases, my breath falters, my body shakes and sweat pours from my palms.  I'm now in fight or flight mode, in response to whatever situation, place or environment I've found myself in.  My body wants to run and my brain is preparing it for just that, pumping adrenaline through my veins.   I've lost count of the amount of times people have made ignorant comments, all to more or less the same effect- anxiety can be conquered with something as simple as mind over matter ..... but when half of me wants only to run and hide, while the other half  is gearing up to stay and fight the generally non-existent threat, to battle for rational calm amidst the fictional chaos, tell me