💋Chapter 5: Trauma, Triggers, and Trying Again

(Healing Is Not a Straight Line, It's a Spiral)

You’re not crazy. You’re not broken.
You’re a human being who’s lived through shit — and your nervous system remembers, even when your brain tries to forget.

Rant

Trauma isn’t just the Big, Obvious Stuff.
It’s the death by a thousand tiny “you’re too much” moments.
It’s the chaos, the neglect, the control, the gaslighting, the pressure to perform, the unrelenting overstimulation.
It’s growing up learning to “read the room” instead of feeling your feelings.

And it doesn’t just disappear because you’ve decided to “get better.”

The Body Keeps the Score... But You Can Rewrite the Script

Your body remembers what your mind tries to override.
That sudden snap when someone asks too much of you?
The overwhelm that floods your chest at the sound of yelling?
The way you shut down mid-convo, forget what you were saying, and just… drift out?

That’s not you “being dramatic.”
That’s your nervous system doing its f*cking job: keeping you safe, even when it’s misfiring now.

You're Not Lazy — You're Fried

Let’s talk about nervous system dysregulation without the PhD jargon:

• Hypervigilance = always on edge, waiting for something to go wrong

• Shutdown/freeze = emotionally flat, numb, or dissociating

• Fight/flight = snapping, fleeing, overworking, perfectionism

• Fawn = people-pleasing, peace-keeping, self-erasing

If you’ve been living in survival mode, of course you’re exhausted.
Of course you melt down in traffic, scream into your pillow, or spiral when one damn dish is left in the sink.
It’s not a failure — it’s feedback.

🌪 Healing is a Spiral, Not a Checklist

You’ll revisit the same themes over and over, but you’re not starting from scratch.
Every time you come back to the pain, you come with more tools, more awareness, more gentleness.

I recently had a total breakdown.
Too many sounds. Too many requests. Too many unspoken expectations.
I took a literal time-out in my room like a toddler because my nervous system said, “NOPE.”

Guess what?
That’s growth.
Old me would’ve shoved it down, snapped at my partner, and drowned it in wine.
New me grabbed a journal, a blanket, and let the storm pass.

Let’s Talk

You’ve been running on fumes and people-pleasing, and now you’re wondering why you’re snapping at the dog and crying in the grocery store. This isn’t just stress—this is system overload. You’ve been trained to keep going, keep smiling, keep giving—until you hit the wall (or the floor). Let’s get honest about what it’s costing you to stay in burnout and what boundaries you’ve been taught are “selfish.” Spoiler: they’re not.

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