Living with CPTSD and trauma, you often move through life so carefully that you forget who the real you is, or sometimes, you never even get the chance to know who you were, because the events happened so young. You shrink yourself, tuck away pieces, and survive, but it comes at the cost of feeling whole. And that’s a hell of a price to pay.

I’ve spoken about this before on this blog, what healings has meant to me, but like everything, it’s evolved and deepened. It’s always been learning about who I am and who I can be, and importantly, what that means for me at this stage of my life. And one of the main things I keep circling back to is how confused I am. Not in a hopeless way, but in the messy, human way of rebuilding. Confusion feels less like failure now and more like proof that I’m finally moving into unknown territory, my own.

The Language of Confusion

When trauma happens early, confusion becomes the default setting. You’re constantly second-guessing:

• Do I really feel this, or was I trained to feel this?
• Is this reaction mine, or is it an old survival reflex?
• Am I making this choice because I want it, or because I’m still scared of what happens if I don’t?

For a long time, I thought that confusion meant I wasn’t healing “right.” Like if I was doing enough therapy or enough self-work, I’d just wake up one morning and be certain. About myself, about my relationships, about my life. Newsflash: that never happened.

Instead, I’ve realized confusion is actually a sign that I’m not living on autopilot anymore. I’m noticing. I’m pausing. And I’m asking questions I never felt safe enough to ask before.

Sorting the Piles

Life for me has become sorting through three piles: what’s real, what’s me, and what’s just trauma residue.

Some days, the piles blur together, and I don’t know what’s what. My nervous system is loud, my thoughts are scattered, and I can’t tell if I’m reacting to the moment or to something decades old. Those days are frustrating because I want clarity; I want clean answers.

But then there are other days. Days when I catch a glimpse of something solid. Maybe it’s laughing in a way that feels unforced. It’s saying no without apologizing. And it’s letting myself rest without guilt. In those small moments, I feel like I’ve spotted something undeniably mine.

And maybe the fact that I can even see the difference now means I’m finally on my way home to myself.

Relearning Myself

Healing has been less about “fixing” and more about meeting. Meeting the version of me that was buried under survival. The kid who never got to just be. The teenager who carried too much. The adult who has been running on empty for far too long.

It’s strange, because sometimes it feels like I’m getting to know a stranger. I’ll notice I like something I never gave myself permission to enjoy. Or I’ll realize I have a limit that I’ve been bulldozing past for years. There’s this constant sense of discovery, like opening a box that’s been taped shut for decades and finding out what’s inside.

And yes, it’s confusing. But it’s also kind of exciting.

What Healing Looks Like (At Least For Me)

For me, healing looks like:

• Saying I don’t know and not panicking about it.
• Catching myself before I shrink too small in a room.
• Trusting a little more than I did last year.
• Letting myself take up space, even when my brain screams at me to disappear.
• Writing posts like this one and admitting out loud that I’m still figuring it out.

Healing looks like a slow, awkward dance with yourself. Two steps forward, one step back, sometimes tripping over your own feet. But if you zoom out, you can see the pattern forming.

Coming Home

And that’s the thing about healing; it’s not about becoming someone new. It’s about finally being allowed to meet the person you always were under the weight of survival.

I don’t have it all figured out, and maybe I never will. But for the first time, I’m less afraid of the confusion. It feels less like a fog that traps me and more like a doorway I’m learning to step through.

And every small step feels like a crack of light breaking through.

Because maybe coming home to myself is the one thing trauma never planned for. And that makes it all the more worth chasing.

If you’re walking this road too, maybe confusion isn’t something to fear. Maybe it’s just proof that you’re asking the questions that survival once shut down. And that in itself is movement toward home.

Photo by Rusty Watson on Unsplash