Recovery Mode

For those who can relate, who’ve spent time in survival mode, who use shadow writing to work through trauma, or other good souls seeking perspective without judgement.

After publishing the last two pieces and a collab video, I shut down and returned to recovery mode. Months into it, even as someone who’s written throughout life, it’s still difficult to articulate what this is like. It’s incredibly frustrating. Feels like having to fall-back a step as penance for having the gall to advance by two. Like gaining traction just to hit the ice. Catching wind just to get tangled in the Kite-Eating Tree.

In this mode, I relive nightmares, sleep paralysis, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, diminished memory, insomnia, and intensified ADHD symptoms. My speech slows, I forget words or trip over them. Each life-stressor pumps more hot steam through a nervous system shaped by CPTSD and filtered through neurodivergent traits, making existence itself a challenge. Scars reblister and unexamined shadows compete for audience.

Desperate to feel better, I dive back into self-care and return to therapy. I know I need to shadow write again, but I have to be well enough for my nervous system to handle it. I’d nearly finished an intensive piece just before encountering The Fall again. Not coincidentally, I’m sure, this piece I’d spent time writing (and will publish soon) is about both The Spiral and The Cycle.

I know to follow a feeling to its origin, that the “shadows that arise need attention.” I know I must acknowledge my emotions and follow them each to their roots, communing there with Inner Child. She reminds me to be present in each moment’s texture and scent and sound and taste. But in this state my senses are dulled and feelings muted, depriving me of humanity’s most basic sensory and emotional experiences. My mind is clouded, and thoughts are scattered. Emotions lead everywhere and nowhere, somehow at once the surface tension and the depths. Parts of my mind feel glitched in a matrix. Thoughts become tangled chains waiting to be freed of the cluster. My clumsy hands fumble them.

I know to be good to myself - spend time with water, touch plants, talk to animals, and put my feet onto the soil. But when it’s a challenge to cook a meal or take a shower, taking a walk sounds like climbing a mountain and sunshine on my skin sounds like sun on a sunburn.

Sometimes, taking down a column crumbles the roof. I can’t blind-swing my way into healing. Without full access to my senses, suddenly, I feel lost.

“Where do I even start?” I text a close friend, half asking of myself. In turn, I’m reminded -

To be patient with myself.

To stop telling my mind which directions it can go or how deep a depth it can handle.

To go, without worrying about how to get there.

Crazy? Put on the aluminum hat? No, not crazy. Just a decent human having to process a lot of trauma through bad wiring.

I sit in the quiet.

“Stop trying, then,” I feel. “Just be.” A tall ask.

In moments of realization, I think, “Either I’ve fucking lost it or I’m finally back on the right track.” Maybe a bit of both.

Again, I’m seeking to open my mind to the possibility that any direction at any depth is OK. Using therapy and writing again to follow where my thoughts and feelings converge. Tracing down to roots’ sore origins and examining each with humility and the continued genuine desire for healing and growth.

A beautiful friend once said to me, “That part of you who longs to be more whole is the core of who you are.” I truly miss her. And though she no longer sees me, I’d still like to make her intentions proud.

Here I go.

Resources…

Crisis Lifeline - Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Free & confidential emotional support for suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24/7.

Anonymous Mental Health Support - Call 855-845-7415 or go to mentalhealthSF.org/warm-line/