I am grateful to these people who welcomed me into their home. Especially everything I have been through and it was a huge change for all of us. But this isn’t my home. It’s almost like living with my abusive family, just that I feel safe.

I’m no longer dealing with mental and physical abuse. I am no longer dealing with the yelling and made to feel like I am worthless. Not fearing that at any given day I would be homeless, all because I stopped being their slave. But as I try to make living in this new place work, it is taking a mental toll on me.

Visually it’s as if I still lived back in New York. This home is not mine. I simply rent a space to be able to sleep. At the end of the day, I can not control what goes on here. I do not control how things can be rearranged to help with my needs. After months they had, somewhat, cleared out the spare room. Even though it is set in a way that benefits them the most.

I’m still stuck in a room no matter what state I live in. Even when I now live in a small trailer home, everything seems so out of reach. For example, the kitchen. Even though it takes a matter of 2 steps to go from my temp-room to the kitchen it’s still a lot. Especially since there is a door between me and the kitchen. I am spaciously able to walk to the kitchen, to the garbage can in the kitchen, to the fridge, and yet it is mentally out of reach.

Because I’m so used to entering a place where I sleep and not seeing that I belong there. Throughout my very childhood, I had to make it seem my very existence wasn’t real. Then moving with one of my sisters, and walking into her home nobody would have known I lived there. All my belongings had to fit within a very confined dimension or my things had to be thrown away. And no matter where I live, it’s always my stuff that needs to be gone.

Growing up every room in the house that was not my confined space was forbidden. The very bathroom we shared I didn’t feel I belonged. The kitchen was even more forbidden. Constantly being forced out, told that I’m in the way. Anything I touch was made to seem dirty. Then when I got older and moved with my sister the treatment continued.

The guest bathroom wasn’t called the “guesT bathroom”. It was referred to be my bathroom. Doing my laundry was a hassle, due to only having a limited time. Not only because it was going along a short hallway. But also due to my sister always doing laundry. So, I never knew when she was done or didn’t have anything in either dryer or washer. Not to mention, the bathroom, that had the bathtub, was foreign to me. Especially with how I had to clean out all my nephew’s toys, even though it never bothered them.

Everything in the kitchen was never mine. All there ever was is food that they ate. Constantly tried hard not to eat whatever was around because I worried about not eating my nephew’s food. Even when it was all bought with my money. I grew up constantly starving because I was shamed for eating. But on the same note made me eat more whenever they couldn’t finish their food. I was practically living off their very scraps. And whenever they bought outside food, I was a mere afterthought.

Yet living with my sister, she would buy food for her and my nephew. Unless I was the one who was getting it. But she always made it so I had to buy her food whenever I had money to spare to treat my nephew and myself.

Now that I no longer live with any of them, I am able to buy food for myself. But I run the issue of I don’t know what is enough for me. I don’t know how to look at food without feelings of absolute disgust. Even on my good days, it’s hard. I could be starving but would not feed myself. All because it means stepping into the kitchen, where these people can see me.

In the back of my head, all I hear is that I’m eating too much. Questioning when was the last I ate. Because I don’t want to come off as fat and stuffing my face. I have trouble cooking because I have to constantly deal with trying not to overlap when they cook. Because of this, I have missed meals.

If I cook too early, or just long enough before they do, I have to worry about moving my cooking setup out the way. If I cook after them, I have to worry about moving their setup. Not to mention the number of dishes that build up among 3 people. Then there’s breakfast, where I feel on high alert as if I’m being watched and timed. The very anxiety of putting food away when I have little space to work with.

I become frozen with how am I supposed to do things when this is not my home. To shower, use the restroom, and brush my teeth is a hassle. Things that would benefit my health and needs I can’t do with where I currently am. Sure, I feel physically safe, and I can freely talk about my emotions. But mentally everything is overwhelming. Constantly seeing that I do not fit hurts so much.

They like to tell me that I am not taking up space and it’s not a problem for them. But that is the problem for me. I’m still trying to be so small to make sure everyone is comfortable with me being around. Yet it’s affecting me greatly that it hurts so much. All my life I have been nothing but a burden and lower than dirt. Now, I’m in a place where I’m seen and heard, yet I’m not. I’m still hiding because I don’t belong.

I started seeing a therapist, and during my first two sessions, I mentioned my current living situation. Yet I can’t bring myself to tell her how bad it’s affecting me because I don’t want to come off as ungrateful. I don’t want these people to feel as if their kindness was wasted on me. Yet same time I’m struggling so hard to not feel miserable.

I am crying while writing this. I am currently hungry while trying to get through this. I’m terrified to go to the fridge to get something to eat because I fear waking them up. I have gotten yelled at and beaten by my older brother because grabbed a snack from the kitchen in the middle of the night. Living with my sister it was always a fight if I even dared to open the fridge to get something to drink. Even though these people have permitted me to do as I pleased, I simply can’t.

I am living in their home. Taking up their space. Even their time. Sure, I pay them rent and try my best to do what I can but it’s never enough. Because no matter how you look at it, I’m just a welcome invader in their home. The only difference is they’re not trying to kick me out.

The only true difference that happened since leaving my abusive family, besides states. I’m back to sleeping on the floor. I don’t have a bed. What I do is take the only 2 heavy quilts I have to do a makeshift bed. At that, I am very crapped because I need to do another cleaning. Also known as I have to make my things disappear.

I’m pretty sure my body is going to shut down before I crack long enough to plan out my death. I say this because I suffer from C-PTSD. I deal with sleep anxiety, which is a learned trauma response. Starvation makes the sleep anxiety worse, so extremely difficult to fall asleep. Having my bed on the same level as the litter box. Even though the cats have peed on all my quilts. Not having the space to exercise. Physically and mentally. Because of my level of stress and anxiety, my skin picking keeps getting worse.

I am literally and figurately self-harming myself because of the amount of stress I’m under. To top it off the occasional mention of my weight and health, along with “tips” to help, is pissing me off. I can go for 2 hours walk but all that work would go to waste. Especially due to the fact I am not eating enough or properly. Not getting enough RESTFUL sleep.

A person could tell me everything in the book to help with stress and it would mean absolutely nothing to me. Because I have tried everything. Even my therapist was shocked that I have tried everything she had suggested, before she told me, and everything had failed. At that, currently the things that do help with my stress I can’t do. And that’s because 1) certain aromatherapy scents these people are either allergic to or are too strong for them. 2) I have no theoretical space to do the majority of anything. 3) My stress will not go always as long as I am literally in someone else’s home because I have no space. 4) The only place currently accessible for me to take showers is a public restroom.

Like I said at the very beginning, I am grateful these people allowed me into their home. And me stating this multiple times is a huge trauma response. Because I have been made to feel like an absolute ungrateful burden. Hearing my sisters go on and on about how everyone pays for everything for me and I’m ungrateful for it. To hear how I practically owe them my life because they took care of me.

Do you know what’s like for a family member, let alone the sister you looked up to, to tell you to your face “You owe me your life. I’ve done everything for you, which makes you, my slave.” And to hear that throughout your own entire life. To being proven over and over again that you’re a burden, an extra mouth to feed, absolutely nothing, and how you’ll never be enough.