When you’ve been running for years, how do you decide when it is time to stop?

I have 28 May 2010 marked on my calendar as ‘Freedom Day’. That day, I woke up in my hell for the last time. I had just graduated high school the weekend before, and had spent the rest of that time, to my mother’s great irritation, packing all of my belongings in order to move out. I had been orchestrating my escape for a few months, having obtained an after-school job and, since my father wanted to continue financially supporting me with child support even though I was 19 and technically an adult, persuading him to give it directly to me instead of my mother. I used the (conveniently true) justification of wanting to spend the summer with my father before I began University. This was something sensible with which my mother couldn’t really argue. It took two trips to get my things from Texas to my father’s place in Oklahoma.

I can remember even now the stark, almost metallic taste of anticipation as I made the final turn onto the highway which led me away from hell forever. The day was overcast, but my heart was full of sunshine. I had survived. I was getting away.

I’ve been free for 13 years, 10 months, and 23 days as I write this. At that time I didn’t fully realise the significance of what I had done. I knew I was getting away from hell, but I didn’t comprehend the momentousness. I had pushed from my consciousness much of the terror of my childhood; this was the only way that I kept a clear head and orchestrated my escape. This disconnect with my past propelled me through the next 5 and a half years, which I spent getting my Bachelors and moving to England for my Masters and PhD. Much of that time was spent learning about myself: that I am autistic, that I have valid medical conditions, that I am intelligent, that I have some value as a human. My turning the car onto the highway to freedom did not signify a singular moment of escape, but instead, the beginning of a process which was worked out painstakingly through each and every day of my early adult life. I spent it learning the lessons that I had missed out on in my childhood. Escaping from lifelong isolation, quasi-captivity, abuse, and exploitation doesn’t happen all at once.

Escaping was not the end of my suffering, either. I was so stressed in the months following my escape that I lost weight, lost most of my hair, and became sick. I had no clue how to live. How often does one wash their clothes? Eat? Shop for groceries? How often do you go to the doctor? For what things do you consult the doctor? What things can be handled at home? And then, when I arrived in England and my subconscious felt truly ‘safe’ for the first time, the impact of my trauma hit me with a flurry of complex PTSD and executive dysfunction. This process hasn’t been easy at all.

In fact, it wasn’t until two weeks ago that I realised that, well, I have completed the process of escape.

By now, I’ve gotten two degrees in the UK. I got my first job. I got my first home – a rented studio flat, but all to my own. I am (somewhat) functioning as an adult. In a few months I will get permanent residency in England and never have to go back to the United States again, if I don’t want to. True, I suffer from severe mental and physical health problems, and some days ‘functioning’ is an unrealistic extrapolation of what I’m actually managing to do. But it dawned on me one day that I have done all I need to escape.

It’s over.

Well, perhaps. You see, when you spend 13 years in an escape mindset, you grow accustomed to it. It’s always peering over your shoulder for potential danger. It’s feeling that you’re going somewhere and that you haven’t yet arrived. It’s feeling incomplete, uneasy, unsteady. You feel both hopeful, yet precarious. There’s no true peace or rest — you’re always on the move, whether it be physically, or internally within yourself. You’re always learning and evolving, but not to grow, no, only to ensure you don’t fail. You are only welcoming change in order to find new ways to continue your survival and solidify your freedom.

One cannot self-actualise or grow in this situation. One cannot pay attention to healing their wounds when constantly on the run. At some point, one has to decide when ‘far enough’ has been achieved. The problem is, there’s no manual for this. I didn’t really conceptualise my mindset as being an ‘escape mindset’ until now. One of the characteristics of my period of escape has been regularly attempting to ‘stop’ — to put down roots, to breathe and begin living. These attempts don’t last long: something would come along and push me back into the escape autopilot mode, and I’d be living with that familiar empty, wandering feeling prevalent in my heart.

But recently, the whole story was flipped on its head for me. It dawned on me that I simply needed to give myself permission to stop running. To tell my brain and my heart that I’ve made it far enough and that I can…well…just start living. That it’s time for me to realise I now have a new task set before me: not to escape, but to build. To heal. To be.

So at the end of one Shabbat a few weeks ago, I went down to the river which runs close to my house, and sat and watched the sun go down. I watched the first new stars begin to show themselves. I watched the gentle river take away the past 13 years of my existence. I breathed in a new era. I am now building a life, one which was hard won, but one which can be beautiful. It’s up to me to make it that way.