Yes, and

When I was a teenager, a friend’s mom told me, “Sometimes when you’re healing, what feels like a step back is actually a step deeper.”

When I was a teenager, a friend’s mom told me, “Sometimes when you’re healing, what feels like a step back is actually a step deeper.”

My life has essentially been one trauma after another.

That’s not to say that I haven’t experienced joy, that I haven’t found or made beauty within my life.

Grieving what was taken from you doesn’t negate gratefulness for what you do have. It’s not an either-or situation, it’s a yes, and.

I am still healing from trauma. I am deeply wounded. I am still figuring out how the hell to move forward, and I also find peace and joy and beauty in my life.

I have nightmares every night, and I can still laugh so hard that my abs hurt the next day.

I’ve heard people say that healing isn’t linear for years. I thought I understood this; people heal on different timelines, each path to healing looks different and depends on the person, there isn’t a checklist you can tick the boxes off. I really wish there were, because my AuDHD brain loves a checklist. Thank you, dopamine.

Almost my whole life, I’ve been waiting for the day that I would be “healed enough.” Waiting for the day that I can drive down that one road without my chest tightening and my heart sinking down into my stomach. Waiting for it to stop hurting. For those painful feelings and memories to stop flooding my brain unannounced, distracting me to the point of frustration. When that day arrives, I’ll be healed, right? Something will just click, and I will finally be free.

If only.

As much as I would like to, there are no stages of healing I can progress through one after another. There’s no Healing for Dummies manual that tells you how to heal in 10 easy steps. Step 1: Have you tried breathing exercises or journaling?

I’ve been thinking, if healing isn’t linear, that means it’s nonlinear by default, but what does that actually mean? What does that look like in application?

I wish there was a one size fits all answer I could give. Honestly, I’m still figuring it out. For me, it means making time to prioritize my wants and needs. It means buying a season pass to the Ren Fest this year, because I love it. It also means my eyes starting to burn, the breath catching in my throat, and leaving a tent in a rush because someone in there was wearing my ex-husband’s cologne, or something close to it, and terror seized my body and I felt like I could drown from the grief. It meant honoring myself, and leaving a situation where I did not feel safe.

It means laughing, out loud, because I no longer have to dim my joy. It also means still wondering why; why me, why couldn’t he love me, why did he have to treat me like that?

It means that I can breathe in my home, that my sympathetic nervous system can start to give way to the parasympathetic, that I don’t have to stay in fight or flight, that I am safe to be present in the current moment. It means giving myself permission to rest, and telling myself that I’m not lazy for needing it. It also means that some days I feel like I can’t stop moving or I will ruminate, and I have to keep my brain busy, or I will fall apart.

It means telling myself in the mirror every day, “I can do it,” and also questioning in the wee hours of the night, “How the fuck am I going to do this?” It means that some days I feel good. I feel like, “Wow, I’ve really come so far. Look at me living the life he said I’d never be able to have, and liking being alone.” It also means existential dread and a creeping, pervasive sense of loneliness; a yearning to be loved, and a fear that I won’t have the loving partnership I want to find someday, or the future I want for us all.

I used to think that once I was healed, the trauma wouldn’t bother me anymore; that I could become desensitized to it—brush it off.

I don’t think that will ever happen, nor do I think it should. I lived through unspeakable traumas. I don’t ever want to be completely desensitized to that. What I would like, is to sleep through the night without having nightmares of my ex hurting me. What I would like, is that when a traumaversary occurs, or my ex does something abusive, that I can acknowledge and name the pain, honor it, and continue to live my life well. What I have found, is that I bounce back quicker. Things that, in the past, would have crushed me for weeks and sent me into a depressive spiral and hurt, still hurt, but not as long. What I am discovering, is that while I still have cycles where I feel less healed than I had hoped, the periods of peace and joy are getting longer in between.

I am angry at my ex-husband. He hurt us, he continues to hurt us, and the family court system and his enablers allow him to get away with it. I have 10 years of trauma to heal from, and long-term consequences that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life, just from him.

I still found joy and beauty in taking pictures of my children while we picked wildflowers for my mom today. The lighting was perfect, making their blonde curls look like halos. I found peace in the way my son ran free in the field and humor in the way he aggressively rolled down (and back up) the hills. He lives so fully with his body. I laughed with my daughter while she was being silly, and I was struck with profound gratefulness that we could talk, and snuggle, and be fully present with each other; that we are safe, that we’ve come so far, and that we don’t have to live with our abuser anymore.

I don’t think that healing will ever look like being unbothered by the trauma.

For me, it’s in the rebound.

It’s in the yes, and.