Littlefish

I am in my mid twenties and currently in a partial hospitalization program for intensive trauma therapy. And honestly, I had no idea what untangling years of suppression could actually look like.

I thought healing would be as simple as talking things out. That’s always what I had done. In a weird way, I think that’s why I convinced myself I had already worked through a lot of my trauma — because I was never secretive about it. I could name it. I could explain it. I could tell the story without crying.

What I didn’t realize is that naming something is sometimes only barely grazing the surface.

The truth is: I am exhausted.

I am having nightmares. My depression and mood swings feel like a new rollercoaster every day. I never know when the ride is going to drop suddenly or take a sharp turn. Sometimes it throws me into a corkscrew I didn’t see coming and I come out physically hurting — my neck tight, my head pounding, my forehead tense like I’ve been clenching against something for years.

That’s metaphorical, but also very literal.

My brain feels swollen. My body feels banged up. My nervous system feels like it’s screaming at me after spending years whispering.

I didn’t know healing could feel this physical. I didn’t know finally feeling things could make me feel worse before better. I didn’t know how much I had actually been carrying.

And maybe the hardest part is realizing how much I gaslit myself into believing I was “dramatic” because other people had it worse. But trauma is not a competition. Your body does not care whether someone else “deserved” to hurt more than you did. It only knows what it experienced and what it had to do to survive it.

So this is a trigger warning for anyone reading this: I am going to use this space to be honest about my experience. That may include talking openly about trauma, mental health, emotional instability, physical symptoms of stress, fear, grief, anger, and the ugly parts of healing people don’t romanticize online.

Please protect yourself accordingly if those topics are triggering for you. My goal is never to set anyone back. I just want to be real about what it can actually mean to unravel years of both little and big traumas.

I am learning as I go.

And despite how hard this is, my goal is not to stay trapped in the pain or turn my suffering into my identity. My goal is to build a brain that feels safe. A mind that is loving instead of constantly at war with itself. A nervous system that no longer feels booby-trapped by the survival mechanisms that protected me for years, but are no longer helping me grow.

I want my life back.

And I think that starts with finally telling the truth about what healing actually looks like.

Just keep swimming. xx Littlefish

This is a place to think together.

i have adhd and ocd. my brain works in patterns, loops, and connections that don’t always translate well on my own.

for a long time i thought that meant something was wrong with me.

now i think it might just mean i was never meant to think alone.

we’ve spent so much time separating the way people think— labeling what’s typical, what’s different, what needs to be fixed.

but what if the point isn’t to sort brains?

what if it’s to use them together.

this is a space for brains that don’t think in straight lines— and also for the ones that do.

a place to: share unfinished thoughts
get unstuck
borrow momentum
and build on each other’s ideas

this is one big group project.

so a few things matter:

be thoughtful.
be kind.
be creative.
be constructive.

you don’t have to agree with people— but if you engage, do it in a way that helps someone think better, not smaller.

ask questions.
explain your perspective.
be willing to step outside of your own.

and maybe even help create a third perspective— something better than either side started with.

this isn’t about ignoring health or medical needs I obviously wouldn’t tell you to not treat something – I treat my mental health issues with therapy and medication.

this is just about also making space for the strengths, patterns, and ways of thinking that come with being different whether it’s from a spectrum disorder, life experience, educational background. It’s to relearn how to exercise critical thinking skills and highlight strengths of neurodivergent and divergent brains, and also a place for me to rant about my experience with ADHD. Idk if will probably turn into something else next week but that is the fun part of my brain, when the chaos turns into art.

you don’t have to have it figured out to share it here.

let’s make things a little better, one thought at a time.

Just keep swimming. xx Littlefish

I’ve been questioning my reality a lot lately.

Not in a dramatic way. Just in this quiet, constant way where things don’t fully line up, and I can’t tell if that’s normal or if I’m the only one noticing it.

There’s so much happening—so many opinions, so many extremes—and everyone around me seems… calm. Or certain. And I don’t feel that way.

It makes me feel a little off. Like I’m missing something. Or maybe like I’m seeing something I’m not supposed to.

Or maybe I’m just overthinking it.

I don’t know.

I was raised in an environment that encouraged questioning things. Critical thinking, avoiding absolutes, not just accepting something because it’s said confidently. And I’m grateful for that.

But what’s been harder is realizing that questioning is only comfortable when it stays within certain boundaries.

When I started questioning things that sit underneath those boundaries—the shared foundation—it didn’t feel the same.

It went from being encouraged to being dismissed.

From “think for yourself” to “you’re not doing enough research.”

From curiosity to concern.

And maybe some of that is fair. I know I can fixate. ADHD does that. My brain latches onto something and wants to understand it from every angle.

But it’s always going to be something.

So I don’t really see the harm in learning how to think more deeply. In researching. In being open to ideas that don’t immediately fit into what I already believe.

Not everything is right. Not everything is worth entertaining. I get that.

But if we shut things down the second they make us uncomfortable, we don’t leave any space for actual understanding.

And I keep thinking about how everything that works—really works—has some kind of balance.

In nature, in ecosystems, in anything that’s meant to last.

Nothing exists in isolation. Everything depends on something else that’s different from it.

And when something takes over completely—when there’s no balance—it stops working. It becomes hostile. Things start to fall apart.

I don’t think humans are separate from that.

I think we like to believe we are, but we’re not.

There will always be outliers. There will always be ideas that feel too far, too extreme, or outside what we consider acceptable.

And some of those things do need boundaries. Systems. Protection.

But not everything that challenges us is dangerous.

If we treat it that way, we slowly lose the ability to exist with anything that doesn’t perfectly align with us.

And that doesn’t create safety. It creates fragility.

I think what’s getting harder is that it feels like the middle is disappearing.

Like everything is pulling in opposite directions, and instead of finding balance, we just keep moving further apart.

And I don’t even know what we’re all fighting for anymore.

It feels like we jump from one thing to the next, arguing until there’s no resolution, and then moving on before anything is actually understood.

And every time that happens, the space in the middle gets smaller.

Until it feels like you’re trying to stand somewhere that barely exists.

I don’t have answers.

I don’t even know if I’m thinking about this the “right” way.

But I do believe in balance.

In the idea that no single person, belief, or system can hold everything together on its own.

That it has to be something we participate in. Something we maintain, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Even when we don’t agree.

Even when it would be easier to just pick a side and stay there.

Because I think the only real common ground we have is that we’re all here.

All human. All shaped by different experiences, different environments, different ways of seeing things.

And maybe the point isn’t to eliminate that.

Maybe it’s to learn how to exist with it.

To adjust. To listen. To hold some kind of center, even when everything around it feels like it’s pulling apart.

I don’t know.

I just have a hard time believing that harmony comes from everyone thinking the same thing.

It feels more like something you have to actively keep in tune.

And I’m not sure we’re doing that right now.

This is probably going to be a little all over the place.

Not in a careless way. Just in the way thinking actually feels when you don’t clean it up first.

Most of the time, my thoughts don’t come in clear points or finished ideas. They show up half-formed, interrupt each other, double back, contradict themselves. I’ll think one thing, then immediately question it, then forget what I was even trying to figure out in the first place.

And I think I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make that look more put together than it is.

Like there’s a “right” way to think. A linear way. A way that sounds certain and easy to follow.

But that’s never really been how it works, at least not for me.

So this is me not fixing it.

Not organizing it into something more presentable. Not pretending I got to the end of a thought when I’m still somewhere in the middle of it.

Just writing it as it happens.

There’s no expertise here. No claim to being right. If anything, it’s the opposite.

It’s noticing how quickly opinions form. How easily things start to feel true just because they’re repeated. How often I catch myself agreeing before I’ve actually thought something through.

And trying to slow that down.

Or at least notice it while it’s happening.

Some of this might contradict itself. Some of it might not make sense yet. Some of it might change completely later.

That’s kind of the point.

This isn’t about having answers. It’s about not skipping over the part where you actually think.

Even if that part is messy.

And just to be clear—this is written in real time, as honestly as I can. I’m not polishing the thoughts themselves, but I may use tools to help organize or edit what comes out so it’s readable. The thinking is mine, even if the wording gets a little help.