What Surviving Left Behind Is Not Who I Am
The marks that surviving has left on me are not the whole of me. I am more than what was done to me, and I am healing.
You have been carrying after-effects you did not ask for. There is a particular grief in the residue of what you survived — the sleep that does not always come, the startle that arrives at small noises, the way certain dates on the calendar can collapse you. These are not signs of weakness. They are signs of a body that paid attention so the rest of you could keep going. You are still here. Your body kept track of what was happening so you could keep living through it.
You did not invent these after-effects. You did not exaggerate them. They are not a verdict on your character or your capacity for love. They are the honest residue of a long stretch of hard years. They are getting quieter, in their own time, without your having to force them.
Anyone who looks at you and sees only the residue is missing the larger truth. You kept showing up for the people you love, even on the days when the body inside your skin was clamoring for rest. You sought help. You did the work. You kept choosing the slow climb back toward yourself.
The body that holds what you survived is the same body that holds your love. The two are not separate. The hands that sometimes tremble are the hands that have held your child through every fever. The eyes that sometimes spill are the eyes that have watched your child grow up. You are not divided between the wounded self and the loving self. You are one person, carrying both, and both are real.
Today, set down the shame that whispers your after-effects make you less. They do not. They make you a person who has been through something and is still living. That is not a deficit. That is one of the bravest stories a body can tell.