I found myself with a pretty open Saturday a few weeks ago and for whatever reason was in a pretty deep funk. But the thing is, I had a pretty great day! It started off with sleeping in because I didn’t need to set my alarm for the first time in ages. Sure, I could have gotten up and gone for a run or taken a yoga class, but I decided to let myself sleep and allow my body to wake naturally. This is not something I practice often enough.

I woke up to a quiet house as my kids continued to sleep. I made coffee and wrapped myself up in my Buffalo Plaid plush blanket and sat quietly in my chair watching the leaves fall and listening to the wind as it played its beautiful symphony outside. I was able to enjoy an obscene amount of coffee while I did a little journaling and wrote in my planner. As each of my children woke up, I had the opportunity to talk with them individually about nothing and everything. My children are a treasure and I used to take mornings like this for granted.

After our conversations and some food, they retreated back to their rooms and I sat with the uncomfortable silence that followed.

You see…avoidance has been the key to my survival. Silence terrifies me. It allows me to process my thoughts. It forces me to face my feelings. As it turns out, I don’t like to feel my feelings because my feelings are scary. I have to be honest with myself when I feel my feelings. Having endured so many years in survival mode, I have realized that it’s pretty damn uncomfortable to feel. So I keep an insane schedule to stay in active avoidance because that’s what I am used to.

Silence always seems to usher in the funk.

I withdrew from the world that day. Most people know when I am in a funk because my texts become less wordy and lack emojis. That day was marked with few words and lack of response. But I couldn’t put my finger on why. I started missing my old life. The pattern and routine that I used to have on Saturdays with the kids when we had no plans. The cooking and baking I would do and projects I could work on. The long runs through the country roads we lived near. The piles of laundry that had to be sorted, washed and dried…the monotony of how it had been for so long. It was comfortable. I knew what to expect.

Except that I didn’t. All was calm until it wasn’t. Something would cause an anger storm and I never knew when it was going to be or what would cause it.

And I think, for a moment that Saturday, I sunk back into the anticipation of an unexpected storm.

When you have experienced trauma, your body remembers how you reacted to it. It is engrained in your nervous system, so while your feelings may not reflect the actual feelings of the moment, your body goes into survival mode or how you reacted when those scenarios were happening.

Anxiety hits and pummels you until you are all but black and blue on the surface. But it remains unseen. Almost as if it is internal bruising in your brain that only you can see and feel and touch. Anxiety quietly whispers to you. It lies to you. It tells you all the negative things that you have allowed yourself to believe for so long.

And as it continues to lie, it intensifies both in negativity and volume as it exaggerates those thoughts and makes things seem a million times worse until your heart is racing so hard you think you might just have a heart attack in that moment and you can’t take in a deep breath and oh my gosh am I actually dying and what are my kids going to do when they find my lifeless body slumped in the chair because I did something wrong again and deserve the awful treatment I have received and are they really going to care anyway because I know I am not worthy of anyone loving or respecting me and my kids just go along with what I say because I am their mom and they don’t need me or want me in their life and neither does anyone else because I am a nobody with nothing but an ugly face and used up body that was once a trophy to a person who I thought actually loved me but treated me like I was a possession because that is what I was to them and they had all the control over my entire life because I am dumb and incapable of making decisions and am not allowed opinions of my own or to have friends because if someone knew the truth of what went on behind closed doors I would ruin everyone’s life so I lie and say I am fine when I actually died many years ago fighting so hard to win the acceptance of someone who couldn’t stand to look at me and would not honor my body or choices or opinions and the fact that I don’t make enough money to give the family the lifestyle they deserve even though I practically killed myself for the companies I worked for so I could make the money to buy the house to pay the bills to buy the groceries to make the food that was only ok or maybe I added too much salt to the recipe today so they had to order pizza and left the table leaving me by myself to eat in silence and then clean up the mess that was made and then was expected to have a smile on my face and accept the fact that I am not a good person and everything is my fault and why do I even try because at the end of the day I just cry myself to sleep and label myself as a failure again for not being able to do all the things or be all the things that everyone expects of me so I beat myself for my lack of once again and promise to do better the next day….

All of these run through my head in the matter of seconds and these conversations go on and on throughout the day because silence is scary. I believed that quiet times would ultimately lead to the storm that I never knew when to expect. The calm is absolutely terrifying.

Except that it shouldn’t be.

I snap out of my negative thoughts and remember who I am. Where I have come from. And that I am no longer in such a situation. I am brave. I am beautiful. I am enough. I am worthy. I am loved.

I write these words on my bathroom mirror on occasion as a helpful reminder.

Anxiety is a liar. And I believed it for a long time and find myself believing again every once in a while. I know a lot of people who still believe the words that anxiety whispers loudly in their ear.

You are more than enough. You are beautiful. You are strong. You are brave. You worthy and deserving of good things. You really are. And so am I.