The Pull I Couldn’t Explain.

I used to think healing from CPTSD was about finding answers in books.

It turns out sometimes it’s about buying a plane ticket to Dublin because your body refuses to be ignored any longer.

I’m finally moving out of the ‘in-between’ space, that strange, uncomfortable gap between who I had to be to survive and who I am actually becoming.

It wasn’t planned in any sense. I just felt this deep, almost magnetic need to go. Of course, at first, I tried to ignore it. Push it down and rationalize it away, telling myself numerous times how stupid I was being. But the harder I fought it, the louder it became.

So I did what I always do. I put on my reading glasses and disappeared down a research rabbit hole trying to understand what was happening inside me.

And it turned out the answer was the one I already knew deep down.

Moving Out of the In-Between

I’m moving out of the in-between space.

That strange, uncomfortable place between who I once had to be to survive… and who I’m becoming now that healing is slowly teaching me I no longer have to live in constant survival mode.

This space I find myself in at the moment is weird as hell. Because your mind starts changing before your life fully catches up.

And I think for people healing from CPTSD, this stage can feel incredibly disorienting. Parts of you start reaching toward new experiences, new meaning, and even peace, while other parts still cling to the familiar pain because at least it was known and predictable.

There is a feeling where something inside you quietly says the following:

“You can’t stay where you were anymore.”

And once you hear it, it becomes really hard to unhear.

Nervous System Exhaustion

There’s a specific kind of soul-tired that comes from living in survival mode for too long. Not regularly tired. Not “I need a nap” tired.

I’m talking nervous-system exhaustion.

And when that nervous system finally starts to exhale, it often doesn’t speak in logic.

It speaks in pulls.

That’s the part that hit me hardest when I started reading about this. That maybe I’m moving from intellectualizing my healing into embodying it.

In other words:

Less analyzing my life and more living it.

I don’t want to spend more time than I need to figuring out every feeling before acting. But instead, I’m learning to trust myself enough to move toward what feels right, even when I can’t fully explain why.

Healing Speaks Quietly

For most of my life, survival mode was loud. It was urgent, frantic, and hyper-vigilant.

But healing? Healing arrives as a whisper.

I’m slowly learning something I wish I’d known years ago: If a pull feels quiet but persistent, it’s usually pointing somewhere important.

Not every pull needs to be followed blindly, obviously. Trauma can complicate intuition sometimes. But I do think there are moments during healing where something deeper inside us starts trying to guide us toward expansion before our conscious mind fully catches up.

And maybe part of healing is learning not to silence that voice immediately just because it doesn’t arrive with an instruction manual. Perhaps part of healing is trusting that your body sometimes knows before your brain does.

Listening to Myself

I’m under no illusion that my short trip to Dublin magically changed me.

But I do think listening to myself helped.

And after spending most of my life disconnected from my own needs, instincts, emotions, and nervous system.

That feels pretty significant.

Photo by Marco ten Donkelaar on Unsplash