One thing that isn't commonly known about trauma is that it hijacks your nervous system. You start to think danger is everywhere, that the end of the world is just a few hours away. You’re constantly on alert, looking for signs of trouble, even if there are none. And if something even slightly resembles a past pattern, your brain latches on.
It’s hard to find a moment of peace, let alone rest when your brain is constantly going.
I used to cope by numbing my feelings through doomscrolling and keeping myself so occupied with activities and being chronically online that I barely got a moment to think. I experimented with my identity through unhealthy methods and lost myself.
Not just mentally, but I was neglecting myself physically too. I wasn’t sleeping consistently or enough. I was skipping meals. I was being careless, at times, leading myself to getting injured in ways that could have been avoided if I was more careful.
I didn’t want to live but I didn’t want to die either. Almost every night, I would be so overstimulated and overwhelmed and anxious I thought I would explode. I thought I was going to die in my sleep. Almost every night, I acted as if it was my last night alive.
It was so bad that it got to a point where I couldn’t be left alone for too long. Someone would have to check on me to make sure that I hadn’t succumbed to the darkness in my head and it would provide a momentary relief but short-term solutions rarely last.
I hadn’t realized all this time, I was running away from myself. I was so afraid of time passing but now, time is the one thing I need the most to heal my heart and my soul.
The thing is, I want to live a peaceful life. I want my life to slow down and I want to be more gentle. I have wanted these things for a while now but I didn’t know how to achieve it. Now, I realize that the fastest way to get through hell is to go through it.
There are a lot of things that I’ve been procrastinating and avoiding, thinking that I was saving myself from future discomfort. Instead, I’ve been holding myself back. I need to face these truths so that I can live, instead of constantly escaping my life.
I don’t want a life I need to escape from, I want a life that I want to live.
There is still a lot of mental work to be done, things I need to unlearn, lies I’ve told myself and accepted over the years, as well as habits that no longer serve me. I am going to take it one step at a time, reminding myself that there is no rush to healing.
Healing will take as long as it needs to take. For once in my life, I am going to be kind to myself (man typing that made me physically cringe) and be more understanding. I have to remember that I am a human being, not a machine created for productivity.
This will be my last weekly Monday post, for the time being. I think for my next phase of healing, I will have to go through this alone but I’ll try and upload some fiction before the year ends. I have some ideas cooking in my brain for a new story.
I want to take a moment to thank all of you for reading these blog posts, whether you’ve been following from the beginning or if you’re a new reader or anywhere in between. It makes me feel seen, knowing there’s people out there who believe in me.
The future no longer scares me though because I know I’m going to be okay.