Disclaimer: I am not a licensed therapist, counselor, or trauma expert. Everything shared in this post is based on my personal experience and should not be taken as medical or psychological advice. If you are experiencing trauma or mental health challenges, please seek support from a qualified professional.
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“You can choose to let the darkness swallow you whole or you can choose to find the light“
I was truly looking forward to going into my 30th year. I had heard of friends and family locking themselves in their rooms for a week when they turned 30 and grieving their loss of youth, beauty, 20’s and whatever else. But I was determined to make 30 my best year yet. I wanted to embrace the wisdom that my 20’s had given me. I wanted to age gracefully and be so secure in myself that I felt the hottest I’ve ever been.
Why are people so afraid of getting older? Aren’t we so lucky to have made it another year? A lot of people don’t get that. Not to throw ‘YOLO’ out there and really age myself, but we truly only get one life to live. Getting to age and celebrate a birthday is an privilege.
Stay with me here, I’m getting to the point I promise.
Anyways, that’s how I went into 30: hopeful, excited, ready to put my knowledge and wisdom to good use.
How am I leaving 30? I turn 31 in 5 days, happy birthday to me. I’m leaving 30: broken, with trauma, unsure of my life, heartbroken and quite honestly scared, but surprisingly still hopeful.
This has been the hardest year of my life. I’ve endured emotional and psychological hardships I never dreamt of enduring. I’ve experienced so much trauma my body just gave out, I fainted from it. Scars have cut so deep I’ve become very familiar with panic attacks. I’ve watched the physical toll all of these mental ailments have caused.
Trauma is a whole body experience.
While I was experiencing panic attacks I was also experiencing a sore throat, dizziness and headaches.
While I was depressed I experienced whole body aches and pains as if I had the flu.
While my cortisol was spiking, issues with my skin would flare up (acne, rashes, dry skin) and my jaw was so tight it made my entire skull hurt.
“It’s easy to feel like you just want to roll over and give up because the pain is just too hard and unbearable.”
Trauma is also a unique experience, and I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in it. I’m not. Everyone has their own story, everyone experiences different things and deals with it in their own way.
But you know what I truly believe? We do all have choices. Trust me, I know, I’ve felt deep in my soul that that wasn’t true especially in my darkest times. It’s easy to feel like you just want to roll over and give up because the pain is just too hard and unbearable. But you know what? You can also choose to stand up and keep fighting.
I’m not saying it’s an easy choice. I know it isn’t. It probably will take absolutely everything you have. But you CAN FIGHT.
You can choose to let the darkness swallow you whole or you can choose to find the light, no matter how small it is, and cling onto it with as much strength as you have left. If no one else does, just know that I believe in you. We are all stronger than we give ourselves credit for.
Like I said, I’m not a trauma expert and everyones experience is unique. As much as I want to write something to help guide someone while they’re in the trenches of trauma, I’m not equipped. If that’s you, if you’re dealing with something that’s breaking you please find some resources to get yourself out. Please find at least one person that can help you. Don’t feel bad about it, don’t feel like a burden because you aren’t one.
Why is healing from trauma important?
In a lot of generations they’ve buried their heads in the sand and kept moving forward through all of the bad. I’m not here to judge that, you do what you have to do to survive and for some people that’s all they know how to do and sometimes it even works for them. But when you don’t heal yourself from trauma it can come out in a lot of other ways. You can be fearful of new experiences. You can become irritable and take your pain out on others. It can cause illness and ailments. And the list goes on.
I can’t help with getting through it, but I can share what I’m doing to rebuild and come back after everything I’ve gone through. It won’t be perfect, I’m learning as I go and adjusting when I need to. If you’re in a place where you’re ready to begin the slow process of healing, here are some of the things that are helping me. They’re simple, imperfect, but they’re mine—and maybe they’ll help you too.
My post-trauma rebuilding habits:
- Shutting out the outside noise and focusing on myself. Well I’m a mom, so I’m focusing on myself and my kids. It’s easy to get caught up in everyones opinion on your situation and that can be extremely confusing while you’re trying to process your own thoughts and feelings on the matter. It’s good to talk things out and get some outside perspective especially when processing things can get really confusing. But if whoever you’re talking to is confusing you more don’t be afraid to let their opinions roll off your back. YOU are the one that has experienced everything. As much as people want to understand and be there for you and try to understand what you’ve gone through, sometimes they just can’t. Try not to hold that against them. Accept the love and support, but if they’re confusing you or making you feel worse you don’t have to take what they say to heart. Don’t be afraid to shut out what they have to say and focus on what you need to process.
- Simplify anywhere you can. After or while you’re going through something big or traumatic the smallest thing can feel completely overwhelming. Sometimes it can even push you over an edge you didn’t know you were standing on. This is a beauty and wellness blog so I will say, I did simplify my skincare and makeup routine to an extreme. But I also tried to simplify my food: easy proteins i could throw on rice or salad, already cut up fruit, easy to grab healthy snacks. Yes, that took a little planning which felt really hard at the time. But simplifying meals and snacks took the burden of trying to plan full meals off my plate. I wrote up my plan in this post if you’re interested. If even simplifying your life feels overwhelming to the point of wanting to shut down you can ask a friend or family member to help. Maybe start with a list and they can help you come up with ideas and systems to help simplify. You’d be surprised by what the people you care about are willing to help with.
- Journal. I know journaling is all the rage right now and can sometimes seem a little kitchy. But after a big/traumatic event it can be really hard to make sense of your thoughts and feelings especially while they’re ping-ponging around your brain and making you feel crazy. Also, there’s something called “trauma brain” where your mind strait up makes you forget the things you’ve gone through to protect yourself from the pain. And while I’m all for protecting yourself from the pain, your mind can also do this cute little thing where it wants to put you back in the situation that caused you trauma in the first place because it wants a redo and a better outcome. So while it might be painful writing down the things that hurt you, if your mind tries to get you to forget it can be good to have it written down so you can go back and remind yourself what you’re trying to move on from. If you don’t know what to write, don’t stress about it. A journal is for YOU. It doesn’t have to be literary or perfect. It’s for you to get the thoughts out of your brain and onto paper. If you really don’t know where to start you can also look up journal prompts on pinterest, google, wherever and feel out what might help you best.
- Look for joy and hope. This is not me telling you to embrace “toxic positivity” and just start burying all of your feelings and telling yourself “I’m fine” over and over again. But hey, if that’s what works for you and that’s what gets you through, no judgement here. What I am saying is while you’re working through this if you can find moments of joy in the hardships it helps rewire your brain to feel hope instead of despair. And to come back stronger, you need hope. I read ‘The Joy Reset‘ and that helped drive home the need for joy in dark times.
- Getting back to things that I enjoy and even finding new things to enjoy. While in the midst of my worst moments I couldn’t pick up a book, listen to an podcast, do yoga, write or anything else that I enjoy. I was in pure survival mode and just doing the things that would keep my kids and I alive and functioning. While I’m coming out of things and trying to rebuild, that urge to just keep surviving is still there as if letting myself enjoy something would set me up to just get hurt again. So I have to force myself to do the things that I’m supposed to enjoy, and you know what? It helps. It makes you feel like yourself again. Sure, that version of yourself might be gone now. But you’re rebuilding, and the new version of yourself deserves to do things that bring enjoyment and happiness. If those things no longer serve you, look for new things to enjoy. The important thing is start living again, not just survive through life.
- Selfcare. Selfcare is kinda like journaling, it can sound a little kitchy and just like a hot button topic while you’re going through something actually traumatic. But there’s a reason everyone talks about it, it is important. It can feel a little silly to do your hair and makeup in the morning when you know you’re just going to cry off all the mascara and you’re going to stay home so no one will see your hair. But you know what? After taking care of yourself you do feel better. And this can look different for everyone. It can be going on a walk when all you want to do is lay down, it can be putting on makeup when all you want to do is stay in a dark room by yourself, it can be putting on a nice outfit just to take your kids to school, selfcare can be anything you want to do to make yourself feel even a little bit better and taken care of.
- Don’t isolate yourself and please get out of the house at least once a day. It’s easy to want to isolate yourself while you’re going through something. It’s hard to put on a happy face and hang out with friends when you know or feel like they won’t get it so it will just make you feel more alone. But you know what I’ve learned from experience? If you have good friends and family members, they won’t need to get what you’re going through to be there for you. You can ask them just to listen or you can just feel the love and support they have for you by being around them. You don’t have to be at 100% for your friends to want to spend time with you. As for getting out of the house, it’s easy to get bogged down by your own mind especially when you’re just home all day. If you need to gently push yourself then do it, but get out of the house (preferably to talk to another human being or do something fun) and see that world is still moving, there is more out there than what’s going on in your brain and in your home.
- Rest when you need it and take care of your body. I know we already touched on self care and it’s importance. But what I’m talking about is movement and nourishment and anything in that realm. It’s easy to stop eating or not eat as healthy when you’re going through something. It’s actually a symptom of a lot of mental health issues. You can either not have an appetite or you strait up forget or you can be so nauseous from stress/anxiety that you can’t eat. Whatever the reason, make sure you’re still getting nutrients into your body one way or another or you’ll just feel worse and create another problem. Trauma also takes a big physical toll, so if you need rest let yourself do it without guilt. Your body needs rest to heal.
- Hold on to what’s going to give you strength to keep moving forward and don’t let go. As I talked about earlier, when you’re in the trenches of trauma the urge to just roll over and give up and fall into darkness is constant. Find what’s going to give you hope to keep pulling yourself up and moving forward. And don’t try to measure how far forward you’re moving, just keep doing it. For me, it’s of course my children and me wanting to be the best mother I can for them. But it’s also my hopes and dreams for my future for after I claw my way out of this. What’s your reason?
Healing is nonlinear, and it’s imperfect. There are good days and there are bad days. I don’t have it all figured out, but every day I choose to keep going. And I believe healing is possible—not because it’s easy, but because we are resilient. These are the things I’m doing for myself and if they work for you and help you I’ll be so grateful, but remember: your journey and your healing is unique. If things don’t work for you, my only hope is that they can at least inspire you to carve a path for your own healing journey. If you found something here that helped, share it with a friend who might need it, too.
Here are some other resources I’ve used during my healing journey, I wanted to link them in case they can be any help to anyone else:
- ‘Heal your Mind‘ by Mona Lisa Shultz and Louise Hay. Amazing read to help you make sense of the mental health and physical issues you might be experiencing as well as supplements, affirmations, etc. to help heal you
- Lemon balm tea – Also known as “natures Xanax” and let me tell you, it DOES help with stress. I especially like it at night to help wind down when I’m feeling “tired but wired”.
