The Weight of Healing

Today is Monday morning. I’m working from home, but honestly, I feel completely spaced out.

I did a lot of emotional and nervous system unpacking over the weekend, and to say it was physically taxing is an understatement. I had to dig down deep and really face some of the things that traumatized me most. I don’t even know if “horror” is the right word, but just the treatment I received, the impact it has had, trying to understand it and finally put words to it.

Then reality hits that I am going to share it.

That’s a big deal for me because I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk openly about some of the things I’ve experienced.

Part of me feels extremely vulnerable right now.

I’m 50 entries into my blog, and a lot of my writing has focused on reclaiming myself. Yes, there was abuse. Yes, I went through hell. Yes, I’ve touched on some of the things she did.

But when I really sit with the things that damaged me the most, it becomes emotionally exhausting.

And then I start questioning myself.

What am I doing?
Am I doing the right thing?

At the same time, I have so many things I still need to unpack and put down on paper, but I do have a full-time job, so I’m constantly trying to figure out how to balance both worlds.

For now, I’ve been saving and voice-noting as much as I can into drafts and emails so I can go back and review everything later, when my system has reached a level of calm. During those moments, I can sit with my trauma and move through it, and it’s not impacting my system as much as it does when I say it out loud and record it.

But today, my body feels exhausted.

And I guess that’s part of the healing process. No one ever told me how it was going to be. I never knew how much damage had been done to my nervous system until I did. This is new to me.

I don’t feel like this daily, but I’m definitely not in my regular upbeat, happy, spring-in-my-step type of mood today.

It takes something out of me to unpack these things.

And I don’t even know if that’s “normal,” but then again, there was nothing normal about what I went through.

I’m sitting here trying to work, but honestly, I don’t want to work. I want to work on my blog instead — not because I’m spiraling, but because I’m finally in a clearer headspace after everything I purged over the weekend.

When I do the unpacking, I have to cope to help myself push through the pain because it doesn’t just hit my chest. I feel it in my heart — a deep heartache — and I feel it through my whole system. It hurts. It is a physical pain.

Sometimes I cry it out. Sometimes I dance it out. Sometimes I just hug a pillow and rock as I cry — whatever I need to soothe myself in the moment. But there is always a part of me that forces me back up to shake it off, like dirt from a rug.

And the strange thing is, I wasn’t emotionally exhausted over the weekend while I was doing it. I’m emotionally exhausted today. It’s the aftermath of my storm.

Maybe emotionally exhausted isn’t even the right phrase. It feels more like my body has been beaten down.

My mind is racing with thoughts, and I just want the noise to slow down for a little while.

But at the same time, I’ve built momentum, and I don’t want to lose it.

Even though I’m scared to share these things, I still want to.

Some of it comes with shame because there are still moments where I question what I did to deserve what happened. And I turn inward, and sometimes I have to fight my internal voice and say, “No, you did nothing wrong. You were a child.”

And that’s not a good place to sit in, especially when you’ve had to navigate through life mostly on your own — with no guidance, no family, and no real sense of safety.

So I became my own safe space. I became the person I trust the most, and I learned to be kind to myself instead of hard on myself because self-love is important.

And now, in many ways, my kids are my safe space too.

But I try not to emotionally dump on them because they already lived through enough alongside me.

I wasn’t a perfect parent, but I fought to do better for them every single step of the way.

Because how do you break generational trauma while simultaneously trying to heal and raise little human beings?

I don’t know if there’s a perfect answer to that.

But what I do know with certainty is this:

My children know they are loved.
My children love me.
And my children will always have my back.

We are three peas in a pod.

And I created our family, which is already more than what I came from.