#trauma processing

I didn’t learn this in theory. I learned it by living inside my body when it wasn’t safe to look away. So I learned to stay. To feel. To name what was happening so it wouldn’t rot inside me. Over time, pain became something I learned how to listen to, not because I wanted to, but because avoidance can destroy you from deep within. So when something hurts now, I don’t know how to pretend it didn’t happen. I need to understand it. I need to speak it out loud so it can settle… it’s awareness. When I’m asked to “just move on,” my body doesn’t feel peace. It feels abandoned. When I name what happened, I’m not trying to fight, I’m trying to stay connected to myself. Avoidance may calm the surface, but it doesn’t repair the rupture underneath, and when something isn’t repaired, it doesn’t disappear. It comes back later to visit as distance, resentment, fear, or withdrawal. I need to be allowed to exist without being minimized or rushed, because I’ve already lived what happens when pain is swallowed instead of integrated.

Everyone talks about the fall — the crash, the chaos, the rock bottom. There’s language for the spiral. There are movies about the wreckage. But no one really talks about what happens after.

No one tells you that getting better is boring. That it’s lonely. That it doesn’t feel like a victory most days — more like losing the only parts of you that made anything feel bearable. That it’s not some glittery phoenix moment. It’s brushing your teeth when you don’t give a shit. It’s showing up when you’d rather disappear. It’s learning how to fill hours that used to be soaked in vodka or distractions or whatever else kept the silence away.

Getting better looks like:

deleting someone’s number and still checking if they texted

buying groceries you’ll probably let rot because trying counts

standing in a room full of people and still feeling like you showed up to the wrong life

cravings that feel like grief

cravings that feel like nothing — which is somehow worse

realizing you don’t miss the substance, you miss the permission to not care

post-acute withdrawal fog so thick it feels like pregnancy brain but without the baby to blame

faking joy when someone says they’re proud of you and you’re mid-relapse

white-knuckling your way through 7pm like it’s a haunted hour

brushing your teeth like it’s a goddamn Everest expedition

taking a bath without a bottle of merlot and wondering how comfort got so clinical

having everything — your own apartment, a new job — and feeling lonelier than ever

moving back in with your family and realizing you’ve changed too much to fit the space you left

missing the person you were when you were drunk: fun, loud, untouchable

staying sober not because you feel strong, but because you’re scared of what happens if you don’t

wanting to scream “I’m a mess” at every person who says, “You look so good now”