I have walked through fire

I have walked through fire. I had a choice! The two paths were a room fully ablaze but with a door, or a dead end that would be my incinorator. I could choose to die painfully, or I could choose to live in pain. I could choose the only option in front of me that let me live, and that was to walk through the flames. For my skin to melt, for my lungs to burn with smoke and toxic fumes, and for my eyes to feel as though the fire was inside them. And more, I had to continue walking. Stopping wasn’t an option, that also would be choosing death. I must continue walking, I must ignore the pain to every extent I can. And when I reached the other side, there was no comfort, no cooling water, there was simply the same choice to make again.

So I walked through fire, again.

And again.

And again.

For fifteen years.

Until I honed every part of my mind to ignore the pain. I can walk through a thousand fires. I can’t feel it anymore.

I finally found an escape. I finally found the exit from the building. I left.

But now when I see the friendly warmth of a campfire, somethings happens in my head. I’m back walking through the fire, all the pain returns to my skin, my skin is melting again, but I remember the choice I had to make, and I know that I have to keep moving on and ignore the pain, because the other option is death. My skin is melting again, and I won’t feel it. I can’t feel it. If I feel it I’ll be overcome by the pain and stop moving, and if I stop, I die. Because my brain has been honed. I know how to survive the fires. That campfire is just another fire burning around me and melting my skin and I must walk through.

I know. I know the campfire isn’t the burning building, but it doesn’t matter to every part of my mind that’s been trained to do the one thing that kept me alive.

I have walked through fire, and I still am every time I see it.

But I know I am no longer. I have worked to make sure the fires can never touch me again. I have built my safety.

Yet every time I see it, I am still there, my skin melting again.

I never figured it out, how to stop walking through the fire every time I see it. I needed help.

I was given help. Help that I rejected, until I didn’t.

“You must feel your feelings.”

Every part of my brain rejected this, because it knew better. If there’s fire, I must stop feeling, it must be ignored, it’s not safe to feel it.

It took every bit of care that I could muster for myself, but once, just once I was able to feel the pain, just a little. I screamed. I screamed as loud and as hard as I could. I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t control it. My skin was melting off.

But then, it didn’t. My skin didn’t melt, my eyes didn’t burn, and my lungs weren’t full of smoke.

The tiniest pinpoint light of safety. A tiny sliver of myself that learned that I could be safe, that the fire wasn’t burning around me.

That tiny sand grain of emotional safety.

And grasping on to it as tightly as I could, I did it again. I let the fire burn in my mind and I felt my skin being to melt and I held the pain and felt it through my entire body. And I felt as it stopped, because I wasn’t standing in the flames.

And then I did it again.

And again.

Tiny steps every few days for months.

I may never stop having to do it, but now I can see a candle and be happy for the warmth and light.

And I do it again. When I see the fire and I can feel the pain being ignored, I let myself feel what I can. And I show myself that it’s safe to feel it.

The campfire still terrifies me. Especially a big one. But maybe, someday, I might sit by it.