The Promise I Made at the Beginning
When I started this website almost two years ago, I made a promise to myself: to be as vulnerable as I could. To be honest about my healing, not because I have it figured out, but because I don’t. Because I wanted others to see that this work is messy and uncomfortable, and it’s definitely not easy. That we will have hiccups, but importantly, that I am out there doing it no matter how hard some days might be.
Why I Keep Coming Back to the Same Places
Sometimes it feels like I repeat myself in what I write about. The same topics. The same realizations, just dressed a little differently each time. But I’m realizing that on a journey like this, it’s part of the process. We have to keep circling back. Not only to help myself, but to show you, the reader, that this is all part of the healing journey.
And that no matter what, you still have to keep showing up.
The Quiet Kind of Hard
The last few days have been hard. Not in a dramatic, everything-is-on-fire way. More in that quiet, sneaky way CPTSD likes to operate. The kind that drains your energy, fogs your thinking, and makes even small things feel heavier than they should. The kind where you start questioning yourself, your growth, and whether you’re somehow “backsliding,” even though you know better.
This is the part of healing people don’t love to talk about. The part where nothing is visibly wrong, but something inside feels off. Where all the tools still work, but they take more effort to reach for. Where rest feels necessary but also vaguely uncomfortable, like you should be doing more, even when your nervous system is clearly asking for less.
It turns out, I have been revisiting old wounds, and not because I am stuck or in a ruminating pattern, but because I finally have the tools to face them.
Going Back With Tools I Didn’t Have Before
That doesn’t make it painless. If anything, it can feel sharper at first. Old memories don’t magically lose their weight just because you understand them better. But the difference now is that I’m not meeting them empty-handed. I’m not drowning in them or trying to outrun them. I can stay present. I can notice what’s happening in my body. And I can remind myself that this was then, not now.
There’s something quietly radical about going back, not to relive, but to re-witness. To offer yourself the protection, compassion, and steadiness that weren’t available the first time around. It’s slow work. Unflashy work. And it doesn’t always feel like progress while you’re in it.
But this is what healing often looks like: circling back with more capacity, not because you failed to move on, but because you’ve grown enough to hold what once overwhelmed you.
Opening the Junk Drawer in Real Time
I’ve spoken about that junk drawer of feelings that we would pretend didn’t exist, and I guess this is me, in real time, actually opening that drawer.
What I have noticed now, though, is I have this level of hope that marinates itself into the heaviness. It certainly doesn’t cancel it out. or it doesn’t rush it away. It just… exists alongside it.
And that’s new.
That Free‑Fall I Used to Know Too Well
Before, opening that drawer would have felt like free-fall. Like getting pulled under by whatever spilled out. I would instantly spiral into the shame and “I’m worthless” pattern that used to take over everything.
But now, those feelings still pop up, but they don’t have control over me anymore. I see them for what they were. An old protector doing exactly what it learned to do a long time ago, not a verdict of who I am now.
And honestly? I know within myself that that is real progress, even if it’s quiet and heavy or if it doesn’t look impressive from the outside.
Keeping the Promise (Without a Neat Ending)
So this is me keeping my promise to myself. Even if it seems like I am repeating things in my writing. Not powering through. Not wrapping it up with a neat lesson or pretending I have it all figured out.
I’m here, telling the truth: some days are still hard. And I’m still here, doing the work. And I’m still choosing to stay with myself instead of disappearing.
That choice matters more than it looks from the outside. That’s what courage really is.