Facebook is a bittersweet place for me these days. I don't get on any social media much right now. I'm too tender for anything that comes across as judgemental or hateful or happy for that matter. There is something painful in seeing others happy while you are uncontrollably miserable.
I do follow one brother, sister-in-law, nephew, niece, a couple aunts and cousins on facebook. For the most part, it is my only connection to any of them. We don't talk on the phone, don't text or email. Honestly, we don't do much more than coexist in cyberspace with each other.
While I choose to lay out the good, bad and ugly of life on my blog, some of my family chooses to put it on facebook. Most of the ugly is a digressed pool of name-calling, public bawling-out mess with whomever they are upset with at the moment.
Occasionally, I catch a photo of one of my parents. That usually stirs up a much deserved negative response in me, naturally. Over the past month, I have caught several pictures of my dad holding/firing guns.
Wow. Even typing that out gives me chills.
That is an image that I just don't need to see or think about at all. Every time I have been near my dad with a gun in his hand, it has been pointed and fired at me.
More times than I can count or probably remember, I have had a gun pointed at me, held to my head, fired at me or been threatened and tortured. It absolutely leaves me breathless (and not in a good way) to see him holding.
A few weeks ago, I saw him standing over my niece with one in his hands. He was teaching her how to shoot, but the image was startling. As innocent as it must have looked to 99.99999% of the general population, it was disturbing.
To think, when I was my niece's age, I already had a healthy respect for guns used as weapons against me and would have not ever thought of shooting one for fun. By the time I was her age, I had a scar from a bullet grazing past my leg during a torture session.
As people debate the rights of gun owners, I find myself falling on both sides of the argument. As someone with a mental illness, I can tell you that I should not be allowed to own a gun. But, I want my husband, as my protector, to be able to own a gun.
The problem with every single law that could ever be passed is that people like my dad would legally be able to own a gun. Someone who shot at his own daughter. Someone who held a gun to a small child's head in order to force whatever kind of abuse on them. That is someone who should never be able to own a gun legally, but who would slip through every kind of law except a full ban (which I do not support).
I love being able to see pictures of my niece and nephew, but days like today leave me feeling sick, stuck and make my PTSD more real than I'd like.
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