Some days, I still don’t know how to explain what I’ve lived through. I only know the way my stomach drops without warning. The way silence can feel louder than shouting. The way my body stiffens at a familiar sound that no one else notices.

It’s not that I’m stuck in the past. It’s that the past hasn’t fully left my body. I can be in a room filled with laughter, in the middle of something good, and still feel a tightening in my chest that tells me I am not safe. No memory surfaces. No clear story forms. Just the unmistakable pull of something old.

People ask why I get so quiet. Why I cancel. Why I need space after things that don’t seem like a big deal. I wish I could explain that trauma doesn’t always speak in language. Sometimes it whispers through muscle tension and shallow breath. Sometimes it shows up as the inability to answer a simple text message.

I used to think there was something wrong with me for this. Now I know my body is doing the only thing it knows how to do. It is protecting me. It is scanning for what once felt dangerous, even if it’s no longer here.

So I try to be gentle with myself. I try to pause when the feeling comes, to step away without shame. I may not always have the words, but I am learning to trust the messages that don’t come through speech. The ones that rise in my gut. The ones that ask me to listen, even when I don’t fully understand.

This is what healing looks like. Quiet. Confusing. Sacred. A process of learning to believe your body, even when your mind can’t explain why.