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