It’s been awhile
You may have noticed it has been quite awhile since I have posted anything here. And I have to be honest, this is NOT the post I was hoping I would be able to write when I would get back on here. I posted last year about the trauma healing journey I have been on the last 2 years. I was really hoping that when I wrote my next post, it would be the triumphant ‘I made it, I'm healed and all is now great' post. And in a way, that IS true, in the sense that I could not have written this article even a few months ago. Significant healing has occurred in my life, and my incredible therapist, has helped me to recognize recently just how much healing has happened in my heart and life. I am so thankful to be able to look behind me and see so much that has healed in my heart and the peace I am slowly feeling day by day. In fact in therapy recently we were excited that I was able to say I felt healed about one specific part of my trauma walk. But looking back at this journey, also helps me to be aware of what is ahead of me, and how much is yet to be healed and confronted.
There is a reason why I want to write this, and why I want to be open about where my life is at the moment. I will share more later about those reasons. But to get there, I need to describe a bit about where I have been in the last year or 2 of my life.
The two battles
I have been in a very difficult and dark season of my life. Amidst some other significant changes in my life, I have been in 2 major battles that have been incredibly hard to go through. The first is the trauma journey I first shared about last year. This process of looking in detail at a major trauma I went through (unrelated to my family or home life), and the painful and debilitating effects it has had on my life since childhood, has been so much more harder than I ever thought possible.
Trauma
It's like opening up that pain, and looking at it honestly, opened up some overwhelming floodgates. Floodgates of; hyper-vigilance, fear, anxiety, grief, anger. My nervous system has been on overdrive, searching for safety, for peace. That deep need to feel safe, has led me to withdraw, to isolate, to retreat. I have felt exhausted in this season. An exhaustion that sleep doesn't quench, the kind of exhaustion where I wake up in the morning feeling like I never slept, this has been exacerbated by many nights where I couldn’t sleep or would wake up feeling terrified and anxious. Between the need for my body and nervous system to feel safe, and my deep, deep desire to rest, I have been in a time where it has been hard to function day to day, to be 'normal'. It is a hard thing to engage with life, when the only place I feel fully safe at the moment, is often on my own. I have seen many trauma survivors talk online about this paradox; the loneliness that occurs in isolation, while only feeling safe when isolated. This grief I have opened up has been just a sadness that exists in me daily, although I have been thankful for the moments of joy that have been happening more often recently. Flashbacks and memories coming back into my mind when I wasn’t expecting them are very unsettling, like recently when I was waiting in the doctors waiting room and a memory came to me out of nowhere and made it very hard to sit there and wait.
The past few years, have been a process of identifying and looking at the fact that I didn't just go through a single trauma in childhood. Instead, I have experienced multiple trauma's over my lifetime up to now. I have also been involved in supporting many people who went through severe trauma’s of their own through my working for Forget Me Not in Romania for almost 18 years now. All those trauma's have added up, they have compounded, until my life has come to a screeching halt. At the end of 2024 my therapist told me he was adjusting my diagnosis to Complex PTSD also known as C-PTSD, I’ll be honest that just hearing that was something to grieve for me.
Physical Health
The second battle I have been fighting since summer of 2024, is my physical health. It was as I went back to Romania after my sabbatical in 2024, that I started to realise I was feeling more and more unwell, in a way that is difficult to describe. Feeling dizzy, lightheaded at times, brain fog, tinnitus, feeling slower, muscle aches, inflammation through my body, swelling, heart & thyroid issues, and these are just the main symptoms so I don't bore you with my long list! This started endless rounds of going to various doctors, in the search for an answer of what was happening. I would like to share more in the future about parts of this battle and things I have learned from it, but for now I think all I can say is how debilitating physically it has felt to experience these symptoms. Trying to work, live and just function has been so much harder for me feeling like this. And a constant thought for me through this journey of trying to find an explanation for what is happening to me physically, has been the question I would ask myself (and still do sometimes); what of this daily battle is physical health, and what is mental health?
I have learned a lot through the courses I am studying around trauma, about just how much chronic stress affects the body. The continual stress chemicals circulating in the body of someone who has gone through ongoing stress and traumas have a very damaging effect. If you have heard of the fight, flight and freeze reaction (often now expanded to include fawning), this response causes a spike in those stress chemicals that helps in threatening situations to get to safety. But the problem is when that reaction stays activated chronically.
So I think I have settled for now, that for me the answer is probably somewhere in between the two. I think the stresses and traumas I have been through since childhood until now, have had a very damaging effect on my body and life while some of my physical health symptoms are directly linked to a disease I contracted.
In September 2025, I did blood testing for a range of conditions that could be causing the symptoms I was having. One of these conditions I tested for was Lyme disease. Which turned out to be positive. I finally had one answer! An answer which in some ways was a huge relief - a piece of the jigsaw falling into place, while also the realisation as I researched and saw how well it fit my symptoms and experience, that a new battle of treatment and recovery would be beginning.
Learning to be broken
So I come back now to the reason of why I am sharing all this here? Especially when like I said, it’s very difficult for me to expose all this about such a painful journey that I am on. And also, I was reluctant to share all this because I didn’t want to come across as self pitying, wallowing, seeking attention or self consumed with what I’m experiencing. So why did I decide to open this season of my life up to you?
During this time of my life, I have said often to my closest friends that I just feel completely and utterly broken. I feel much, much less broken than when this healing journey began, but broken nonetheless. And that's the thing, I was hoping to start posting again when I could say I was healed, and not feeling like this anymore. But I have learned so much and felt so much peace in learning to be ok with being broken, with being in a process. I have had to learn how to be ok and comfortable, when I still often feel physical health symptoms that make life more difficult at the moment. I have had to learn how to be ok, in the moments where I still feel panic, fear, grief, any number of emotions that I shared about earlier. In fact I think the times I have felt most of the unease during this process, is the times when I have strived so desperately for physical or mental & trauma healing.
I realised that I was desiring that wholeness and restoration so much, that I was missing the beauty of the healing season that I am in
It gave me freedom when I was able to accept and say; this is my story for now, I AM broken, but I’m on my way to healing. I don’t believe healing could even begin for me if I couldn’t acknowledge and recognise the brokenness and be ok just sitting in it for now. I don’t honestly know how long this will last for. I don’t even know if there will ever actually be a day when I can say ‘the trauma fully doesn’t affect me anymore’. But I do know that I feel a peace in the midst of this; that this is leading towards healing. This isn’t the end. This is a waypoint in the overall story. I am making a conscious decision to celebrate and enjoy the days when things are a little bit easier, when I feel more hopeful. And I won’t be derailed or taken off this journey on the days where I don’t feel like that; when instead it all feels so much harder to face.
An Encouragement
I wanted to write this, as an encouragement and I desire that it gives hope, to anyone reading this who is going through any kind of battle or healing journey. If you feel broken, hopeless, or if you feel like it’s taking too long and you just want to be ‘there’ already. We WILL get there, but along the way there is so much to celebrate, learn from and hold onto. I don’t say that to diminish the difficulty or the realness of what you are experiencing. This IS a battle, it is real and it is hard, it is exhausting, but I have found there is also a beauty in not rushing the process of healing the brokenness; it opens up a path for healing.
There are many, many things that can help along this journey as we work through the brokenness. I have linked to a couple of resources at the end of this. For me personally, while trauma courses, therapy, books and journalling have helped SO much, it is also my faith in God that has been a refuge, and a sanctuary for me, a safe space for my heart, a place to go to in my grief, a place to find encouragement and hope.
I think the thing that took me longest to understand about my healing, is that I was not trying to get back to some original version of myself
There is a Japanese art called ‘Kintsugi’ where when a vase or any pottery is broken, it is repaired using gold, silver or platinum. It is repaired in a way where the cracks aren’t hidden, but are shown and made beautiful. They aren’t hidden, or covered over but are celebrated. I loved a post I saw on the C-PTSD Explained Facebook page recently that said ‘I think the thing that took me longest to understand about my healing, is that I was not trying to get back to some original version of myself’. I used to journal that I wanted to go back to when I was younger, to where things didn’t feel quite so hard as they do currently…instead now; I want to get to where I am a new and more healed version of me. A me that will forever carry many scars; but scars are signs of healed wounds.
If you are on a healing journey of your own, I have a few journal questions that I hope might help to pause and celebrate the place that you are at on this journey and where you hope to be. The questions are below to copy or you can download the PDF to print and fill out.
Thank you for reading, and wherever you are on your journey I wish healing and wholeness for you!
1. What are three things you are thankful for, even here? (They can be big or small, like one safe person, one good moment, one thing you learned, one realisation you had)
2. What healing or growth has already happened? (It can be hard when we are so close and deep in our battle, to be aware of where change has occurred. This is a good question to sit with for awhile, as it can help you name moments of healing; moments that you may not have realised have happened until you look back)
3. What healing do you recognise you still want to happen? (This is a difficult one; as you look forward where do you identify as the areas you still want to find healing in?)
Resources:
Good Reads
The Body Keeps the Score has taught me a lot about how trauma impacts the body physically.
Pete Walker
I am part way through this book and it has been very helpful for me so far in understanding more about Complex PTSD.
