The ground has disappeared

Coming out of dorsal vagal shutdown is not linear as I thought it would be. I wasn't feeling better so much as I wasn't daily breaking down. While still crying every day I'd stopped collapsing into my hallway scream sobbing. I wouldn't even say I felt hope so much as I wasn't longing to stick my head in the oven. Apparently when you start to come back your nervous system is testing to see if things are safe. This means if another blow comes, especially one hitting a core would, you can not only fall back into shutdown, but it can come quicker and harsher than the last one. 

Multiple blows at once during an emotional landmine time of the year for me. I collapsed again.

There is rock bottom and then there is a level much more terrifying where you keep falling lower and lower with no end in sight. When you descend into nothingness, the unknown, the darkness, lines become blurred and every breath is forced. Your nerves are exposed and raw and feeling is excruciating. Your fears turn to terrors as you wonder how long will this free fall last? Will I even survive the landing? 

What makes this especially heavy is that collapse doesn’t come from refusing to heal. It comes after years of trying. I'm told I should focus on "healing", whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean, and feeling my emotions. As if you do all these hard things and some magical land of happiness awaits you on the other side. I look back and I did everything I was told to do: therapy, journaling, medication, meditation, yoga, prayer, positive affirmations, crystals, energy work, hypnosis, manifesting, intentions, body work release, magic...and yet here I am flailing into the abyss alone. Collapse happens when you’ve exhausted every option you were told would save you, and your body finally says it has no more energy left to search, strive, or fight. Not because you want to die, but because you’ve run out of ways to stay alive that hurt less than this.

I feel like the entire weight and grief of my life experience has overtaken me. I tried to feel these emotions, cried so many tears, but this time is different. Between loss after loss in a few months' time, traumas compounding, over a year all my resilience and tenacity which I've relied on gave out as it was too much to bear. I can't hide it as I used to. I can't shove it down with all the things I've used to numb myself over the years. I can't pull out of it. 

When pain dismantles the nervous system, it doesn’t just hurt it alters capacity. It narrows the world. It collapses time. Decisions become heavy, language thins out, and even small tasks require negotiation. Despair sets in as exhaustion so immense there’s nothing left to carry hope. The system gets overwhelmed past its ability to regulate. From inside that state, survival is already work. When encouragement shows up as reminders to heal, grow, or “do the work,” it feels like another thing to carry. And there’s no strength left to carry anything else. Another moment for you to fail with a spotlight on you as you're judged if you are truly trying hard enough.

No cute and happy conclusion here. Only freefall.

A Filled Stocking

I wrote this on 9/27/23 in a Future Me letter to be emailed to me the day after Christmas 12/26/23: It's the day after Christmas. Are you still with him? More in love? Did you get that moment of being cuddled in front of the Christmas tree, snow falling, and happy? It hasn't even been 2 weeks. This is ridiculous. Yet it feels so good. So right. Or do I just want this so much? I think he's in a similar position as me; wanting love so much and willing to do anything to get it. Yet even outside our desperateness, we fit. I hope this is love. You deserve it so much. I hope you are waking to this full of cookies and smiling. I hope it was the best Christmas of your life. If not....you're used to it.

It was coming up on 3 months of being in a relationship with him. He said he loved me in days, relationship status changed on social media in less than a week, Google calendar together to share our every move, and talk of marriage and forever. As Christmas was coming up he said, "just so you know you won't be getting a ring...but I would marry you." I had no expectations of a ring and didn't understand why this disclaimer needed to be said at all. I smiled and nodded while trying to internally decipher why he'd need to say that. Instead of giving me some sort of assurance of his love and devotion to me, it felt like a way to make me on unsure, and it worked. 

Christmas has always been a sad time for me where I looked at it with both hope and dread. One of my earliest memories is sitting in the dark in front of the Christmas tree crying as I heard my parents fighting about my mother spending too much money on one of my presents. I took it personally feeling that my father didn't think I was worth enough for the extra five dollars she spent. Christmas when I was married, and the only time in my life having a partner, was an anxiety filled nightmare. My husband was someone who was always angry and I codependently was on edge to manage his anger, make sure he didn't cause a scene, while still making sure my son had a happy Christmas. It wasn't fun. We'd be driving to one of the many Christmas family events we needed to go to, as I tried to regulate my breath and pop an anti anxiety pill if I could get one. He would know all the reasons it stressed me out and say loudly so our son could hear, "Why are you acting this way? What's wrong with you?" Male anger scares me, and I didn't want my son to remember his childhood with fighting, so I'd smile and shove all my feelings down to appease him. 

The part I dreaded most was looking in our stockings. I made sure my son and husband had presents and treats in their stocking to find that every year, for 24 years, I had nothing. He would look in his stocking and see me fighting tears holding my empty one and say, "oh...sorry", and then I would shove a cookie, or 10, in my mouth and try to act like I wasn't dying inside. The stocking was never just a stocking. It was the symbol of the little girl in me who wanted one Christmas where I was cared for and not forgotten.

I had built this Christmas up to finally have everything I'd longed for my entire life and I was hell bent on making it perfect. It had been just a month before where we'd had a fight that left me confused with glaring red flags all over that I once again shoved down as I wanted the holidays with another person so desperately. I'd come back from a work trip, happy reunion at the airport, as we got back to his place I was smiling and pouring a wine and he came up behind me and aggressively said, "You're acting off. What's going on?". I turned around confused and said, "What? I'm fine.". He comes back again, accusatory and harder this time, "No, you're off. What's going on?". Now I'm scared and I'm not sure why. I felt completely fine and didn't see anything different in my behavior. And the "off" felt like I was being blamed for something yet I didn't know what. I became flustered and tried to figure out what I might be doing to deserve this statement, and said, "I'm tired. I guess I'm just tired.". He said, "Oh you're tired...so you lied to me. You said you were fine but you're not fine, you're tired. You lied.". My brain scrambled as this was completely inane, yet it was the week before Thanksgiving, him and his daughter were coming to my family's, I'd finally have a parter with me and not be the one sitting alone, and I wanted it all so much. I plead my case that a person can be both fine and tired, and I certainly wasn't lying. This lead to more fighting, and him saying he can't be in a relationship with a liar, even something as small as saying they are fine when they are tired. This fizzled out, Thanksgiving was nice, and I had someone by my side and didn't want that feeling to end. 

Future Me letter December 3, 2023
We had a fight this morning and I'm still reeling from it. He escalated quickly and I couldn't understand why. I felt like I was being accused, and then when I reacted, he implied my reaction was sketchy. Fully gaslit me and I'm seeing I am trying to make it OK, or believe he didn't realize it. But he said flat out "you are a red flag, there are question marks with you..." then went into my social media being public, and how he doesn't know who I'm reacting with. And when I tried to show full transparency to him he got angry at that too. Yelled. Each time I tried to reply he "didn't understand my reaction" or words. I felt like I couldn't speak. I find myself dreaming about marrying him and I think it's because then I'd feel he's locked in and won't leave me. I realized I was feeling triggered that I'd be left. I shared this and he said I didn't trust him. I don't fully trust his reactions. I feel like he'll say the "energy is off" or I'll say one wrong word and he'll end it. He's says he's all in, not leaving but then I feel like he says these things purposefully to throw me off. I feel like he wants me insecure.

The tree was up, presents were bought and wrapped, and now everything feels volatile, yet I wanted my special Christmas so much. I wanted those happy holidays pictures. I didn't want another year of sitting alone Christmas day, crying, wondering why I couldn't have what it appeared everyone around me had. The intermittent reinforcement had begun, and we were back to acting like all things were well, though I felt he'd already pulled away and I started walking oh so delicately on eggshells. He was unstable while giving an air of being zen and above everyone else, manipulative, sexualizing conversations with graphic tales of his past that I didn't ask for, fixated on exes, financially shaky, and unpredictable. But how do I call it out, or leave, when I'm so close to getting what I always wanted? I stayed silent.

It was Christmas Eve morning and the plan was to go to my mother's for brunch. I would be meeting my nephew that my brother and brother in law had adopted for the first time, he was bringing his daughter, and I would finally have my happy Christmas with someone. I first got a text that my brother in law had covid so Christmas was off. Though deeply disappointed, I still had that night where my son would come to his place and we were going to pretend to be a family. Minutes later my other brother texts that his former father in law was dying and he was bringing his children to the hospital to see him. I got out of bed, frazzled, and got up to make coffee and to wake up and take in what was happening. As I went downstairs I walked past his daughter's room and frantically said all that was going on. As I poured my coffee he came up behind me, feeling eerily similar to when I'd been told I was "off", and said, "my daughter said you were laughing about someone dying". I turned around shocked and said, "What?! No, of course not. I told her what was happening. Wow...I love this man, he is truly one of the best people I've ever known, and I'd never laugh at anyone dying.". He said, "Good. Because if you had I'd kick you out onto the street right now." I froze. Why? Why was that being said to me? His face was cold and glaring and I turned away, because I was so close to making my Christmas fantasy come true, and I couldn't handle it being destroyed before my eyes, even if it meant sticking up for myself. 

We had our pseudo family Christmas where everyone got gifts, we laughed, and I had something in my stocking, with even a stocking for my son. I went to bed smiling and wiping away tears of joy, even though he'd stopped holding me at night. Asking for what I needed always brought about male anger, one of my worst fears, so I took any scrap I could get, as I figured something was better than the nothing I'd always had. I finally got my filled stocking.

Coming Back

Content Note:

This discusses nervous system collapse, the physiology of “coming back online,” and the fragile, disorienting process of returning from shutdown. Read gently.
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The nervous system cannot sustain being in dorsal vagal shut down for a long period of time, as the body basically thinks it's dying and conserves energy. Coming out of it isn't a big rising moment of being fine and back to any semblance of normalcy. It's a flickering of the possibility of hope. It's no longer walking into your house and falling to the floor sobbing... at least not every day. It's seeing that though you still feel like shit that you are taking steps to try to live.

I spoke to my new therapist about how my lifetime of suicidal ideation was different this time. The thoughts were violent in a way that shocked me. In all my death plans it was always going to be done with drugs...I wanted out of the pain. I had flashes of wondering if the bars outside my deck would hold my weight. I lightly brushed knives across my wrists to see what it would feel like. I told myself I'd never do it but also saw that all it would take is one more bad moment to fully drown me in my despair.

What's hitting me most right now is the shame of it all. You can break a leg, get physical therapy, and everyone understands. If you're diagnosed with a heart condition and need to get on medication there will be empathy and concern. But if you mind breaks, if your nervous system gives out, if you spiral into emptiness...you'll find most people around you can't comprehend and don't know what to do. It's not their fault, it's not your fault, yet this takes you further into isolation and feeling that you are completely on your own. I've been held with compassion by so many and at the same time I feel ashamed that I wasn't strong enough to keep it together. Shame that I've shared and everyone knows I had a nervous breakdown.

Coming out of this feels disorienting; you're living in a body that's shifting faster than your narrative can explain. Nothing about this is linear. I've had days I feel almost normal, though my normal was depressed it wasn't catastrophic. And then in a moment the hysterics can begin again without warning. The nervous system doesn't care about your schedule. It doesn't care that your life is on fire or that you're trying desperately to hold it all together. 

Today I made future plans, I went back to big ideas I was forming before I crumbled, and while wiping tears I tried again. For today...

Though sharing all this brings me embarrassment, shame, and the sense that something is broken in me beyond repair, I know someone else needs to hear it. I know there is someone else out there who needs to be seen and told they aren't the only one. And something deep in me, some place of hope and transformation, some relentless part of me believes my purpose lives in telling the truth of this.

Staying Alive

I’m writing for my life. Not metaphorically...literally. As if saying everything I've suppressed will somehow heal me. Or stabilize me. Or keep me breathing. These sentences are the thin thread I’m holding onto while my nervous system tries to remember how to breathe. I'm not crying for a year, I'm crying for a lifetime. I realized a few days have passed without me thinking "I wish I could die". Now it's more of a sigh of "You have no choice. You unfortunately have to live right now."

People keep offering me hope and advice and tidy encouragements, and I know they mean well. But there are kinds of pain you should never speak into unless you’ve lived them. And the thing is the comments aren’t cruel. They’re well-meaning. They come wrapped in care, in love, in concern. But even well-meaning words can hurt when they land on someone who’s already at the edge and can’t take one more misjudgment or another blow.

A sentence meant to “encourage” can feel like sandpaper on an open wound. A suggestion meant to “help” can feel like someone saying they’re tired of watching you bleed. And the moment I try to explain this, the moment I try to say, “That actually hurt,” I’m met with puzzled eyes, or silence, because they have never lived in a body that collapses before it cries. And that kind of terror cannot be comforted with “You’ll get there,” or “Just keep working on yourself" or "Hold on". 

One of the only ways I’ve ever been lucky in life was getting pregnant. I didn’t “earn” it. I didn’t “manifest” it. I didn’t work for it. I went off the pill and got pregnant immediately, pure timing, pure chance. If infertility had been my story, my ex would never have paid for treatment. But chance worked in my favor that one time, and I’ve never forgotten that.

So, when a woman longs for a child and loses pregnancy after pregnancy, I don’t tell her how to feel. I don’t hand her clichés. I don’t insist she “stay positive.” I don’t push lessons or silver linings or timelines for when she should feel better. I don’t shame her for despair or push her toward gratitude because her pain makes me uncomfortable. Because I haven't lived it, I can't speak to it, and I allow her to feel in any way she needs without my commentary. I tell her, “I can’t imagine what this feels like, but I see what it’s doing to you, and your feelings are valid.” And then I shut up. Because it is cruel to narrate someone else’s suffering when you have never stood inside it.

What people don’t understand is that the same rules apply to catastrophic emotional trauma, to lifelong loneliness, to the kind of grief that rearranges a body from the inside out. Good intentions don’t make the commentary hurt less. Sometimes the “help” hurts more, because it reminds you how far away safety has always been.

That’s the part people miss when they talk to me about my trauma, my loneliness, my collapse. They don’t see that their lives of partnership, stability, and emotional safety were also, at least partly, products of chance. They met someone at the right time. They found someone who stayed. They got the kind of luck I never did.

And still, they talk to me like my pain has a simple fix, like healing is a choice I haven’t made yet.

They don’t know the physics of decades without protection.
They don’t know what it’s like to always be the one without a person. They don’t know what it is to never be chosen in any lasting way.

And I want all those good things for them...truly.
But there is still a small, feral girl in me who whispers, Why not me? Why not ever me?

This is the part nobody sees.
This is the part I’m writing from.
This is staying alive.