There’s a weird kind of silence that hits when you finally stop running.
Not the peaceful kind. Not at first.
It’s the kind of silence that makes your body twitch because you’ve been in survival mode so long that stillness feels like danger. Like failure. Like weakness.
That was me.
After years of “just getting through the day,” I woke up one morning and realized—I was exhausted, but not just tired. My soul was heavy. My emotions? Fried. My nervous system? Shot.
I wasn’t living. I was enduring.
And I think a lot of us are silently doing the same thing—dragging our burned-out hearts through life like they’re carry-on luggage that no longer rolls properly.
I didn’t get here overnight. Life had been throwing punches for years. Trauma doesn’t always show up with a headline or a police report. Sometimes it’s the slow, quiet kind—the kind that looks like smiling when you're not okay, making everyone else comfortable while you fall apart in the bathroom, or saying “I’m fine” so much that it becomes your whole personality.
I was surviving. I was praised for being “strong.”
But strength without support is a trap.
And eventually, the armor started to feel like a cage.
Healing, for me, didn’t start with bubble baths or journaling. It started with rage. And grief. And panic. The moment I stopped numbing, everything I’d been outrunning caught up with me like a damn avalanche.
Nobody talks about how healing can feel like breaking.
But it does.
There were days I didn’t recognize myself.
I wasn’t hustling. I wasn’t over-explaining. I wasn’t people-pleasing.
I was just… breathing. And crying. And sleeping.
And that felt like failure, too—until I realized it was actually progress.
You don’t owe anyone the version of you that survived.
You don’t have to explain why you’re not “on” all the time.
You don’t have to keep proving that you’re okay.
Let me be the one to tell you—
Rest is not laziness.
Slowing down is not giving up.
Burnout is not weakness. It’s your body begging you to listen.
If you’re healing from years of running on fumes, know this:
You’re not behind.
You’re not broken.
You’re finally starting to feel again.
And that’s brave as hell.
Some days, I still wake up in that old survival mindset, half-expecting something to go wrong, bracing for impact like it's a habit. But now, I catch myself. I breathe. I remind the girl inside me that she’s safe now. That she doesn’t have to hustle for love. That it’s okay to pause. To exhale. To be.
You don’t have to stay in survival mode just because it’s familiar.
You’re allowed to want more than just “getting by.”
Here’s to healing.
Messy. Imperfect. Necessary healing.
No deadlines. No shame. No pressure to have it all figured out.
Just one brave step at a time.
