{"id":1783,"date":"2018-12-18T12:26:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=1783"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:12","slug":"seven-is-just-a-number","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2018\/12\/18\/seven-is-just-a-number\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven is just a number"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/7-abstract-art-1061136-cropped.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/7-abstract-art-1061136-cropped-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"629\" height=\"418\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1784\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2015\/03\/02\/387007941\/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean\">Seven<\/a> is just a number. I didn&#8217;t choose it, but there is an aftermath.<\/p>\n<p>The statistics say a seven will struggle throughout life. The deck was stacked against me and I didn&#8217;t even know a game was being played.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There were many things I was supposed to become \u2013 an alcoholic, a drug addict, homeless, or a combination of all three. It would not be surprising if I could never hold a job, suffered from severe depression, or had a short life.<\/p>\n<p>My chances of suicide were extremely high. I spent a great deal of time thinking about it, planning on how to go. In the end, I knew I didn&#8217;t want to. <\/p>\n<p>My overreaching goal in life is to make it to one hundred years old. On that day, I want to yell, \u201cFuck you, motherfuckers who ever fucking doubted me.\u201d Then, I might swear a little bit, too.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t know about numbers back then. I knew about survival. And I was good at doing that.<\/p>\n<p>Seven said my life would be lousy with little chance of happiness. Of course, I told seven to fuck off. Never tell me the odds.<\/p>\n<p>Seven swirls emotions around in my head like a never-ending whirlpool. Seven tries to keep me from making sense of a number.<\/p>\n<p>Seven tries to keep me from celebrating the little victories, the leaps forward, and the milestones. It would rather I remain a number.<\/p>\n<p>Seven is my experience. Seven is my trauma. There is no need for silence or shame or guilt despite what others say.<\/p>\n<p>I did not invite seven in. I did not cause seven to exist. It simply is.<\/p>\n<p>Seven could have been an eight, depending on how you interpret the data. I&#8217;m going to stay with seven. It&#8217;s enough for me to handle as it is.<\/p>\n<p>Some say love or a god can save you from numbers. I prefer science, which can lay out the numbers and show you a path toward something better. They are, after all, just numbers. I am not responsible for my number.<\/p>\n<p>Seven is just a number. It tells a lot about me, but it doesn&#8217;t define me. My strength, my survival does.<\/p>\n<p>Seven isn&#8217;t what&#8217;s wrong with me. Seven is what happened to me.<\/p>\n<p>Seven is just a number. You don&#8217;t ever have to be the sum of any number.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven is just a number. I didn&#8217;t choose it, but there is an aftermath. The statistics say a seven will struggle throughout life. The deck was stacked against me and I didn&#8217;t even know a game was being played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[238,377],"class_list":["post-1783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-mental-health","tag-trauma"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3778,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783\/revisions\/3778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}