Right when you thought you’ve fully healed, there comes that wave of intense sorrow and rage. It’s no wonder why I keep having reoccurring dreams about tsunamis coming to get me. cPTSD has got us doing 25 to life mentally oppressed and spiritually attacked. We go back to questioning our own reality – back to that dreadful square one when we’ve nearly lost our minds.

One day, we could be having a great day, and then the next gets hijacked by the shadows of our minds that keep tricking us, robbing us of our energy.

Poking and proding our psyche while we’re trying to redefine our lives.

Right when you thought you’ve reached that level of “thriving,” in the middle of the night, you are reminded of how your spirit died trying to survive.

Now, you feel like the whole world hates you. Cynical thoughts rise again. Those negative mantras come back knocking you down, and you can’t fight it off for some reason. You feel weak, and you hate it. You feel defeated, and now you’re back to hating yourself for having human emotions.

You start to get consumed by it, drowning in that darkness, and this is the moment where you experience a mental breakdown. That trigger hit you hard, and took you back to that sense of despair you felt back 10+ years ago.

I know it has for me. I write about this because I want to share my authentic accounts of this lifelong healing process. Authenticity is what inspires people. Survivors resonate with these ups and downs. There is a misconception that healing is just some easy, lighthearted journey filled with fucking confetti and rainbows, but that is not the case.

Yes, you’ll feel more grounded overtime, but it takes a lot of shadow work to get there. Healing is tough work that not many people are willing to do, or they’ve become too exhausted to continue on with it. They succumb to vices, and I don’t blame them. This shit is hard, especially when you get those nightmares and flashbacks.

One trigger can fuck up your whole day, and no one understands the severity of it. They think you’re overreacting, not realizing the level of intense pain that is attached to that trigger. It’s not the trigger itself that’s upsetting, it’s the disturbing memory that’s associated with it. Others don’t feel it because they don’t have the trauma you have. The lack of understanding and empathy people have is what makes us want to isolate and stay to ourselves. We feel more alone around them than when we’re on our own.

The dark side of healing is when you go through those lows out of nowhere, and it makes you feel like you haven’t made any progress. It can be very discouraging, and it makes you very susceptible to relapsing. Then, you hate yourself for falling again, and the cycle of depression continues. It gives you this feeling like you’re never going to overcome it. It makes you feel like your healing was in vain. Then, you learn about how cPTSD is a lifelong thing, so it becomes tempting to just give up because it can seem pointless.

You’ve already done everything you could think of to help yourself, and then you get shot back down, sending us back to “fight mode” or “me against the world mode.” It’s like a program embedded deeply into our psychological wiring. All of a sudden, we don’t know who to trust anymore even though nothing is happening anymore. No one is betraying us right now, but our nervous system remembers the past, particularly our early formative years. Then, we bring that back into the surface even if it doesn’t make sense, but we feel it, and the suspicions feel real. Self-awareness is what’s going to help us be more mindful of what’s going on in the present moment. We have to catch ourselves before we get sucked into that mental vortex that distorts our reality. This is what I need to do myself too.

I know I feel like shit when I go through my downs. Healing is a tumultuous journey. CPTSD makes it almost impossible for us to achieve it, but then there’s “brain plasticity,” which is the concept that gave me hope and inspired me to pursue neuroscience. I want to learn how to heal myself and share it with the world. That has got to be the ultimate power of the mind for real!

The healing journey is intense even as we try to mold our brains and rewire our minds back to normal. Only thing I can say is that we have to understand that we are making progress even if it may not feel like it. Just look back at how far you came, and acknowledge the fact that not everyone has the strength to keep going- even just breathing because some people abort mission prematurely. May they rest in peace.

I have to take my own advice as well and be more compassionate to myself. By me writing this, I’m pouring out good energy, and in return, I feel like I did something worthwhile. Writing and sharing my insight and creative works helps me, but you can see that some of my posts vary, depending on where I am in the emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes, I hate it because it makes me feel crazy. Sometimes, I appreciate the passion behind it. I think it’s safe to say that my focus should still always be on elevation.