You know when you’ve wrapped up a project or assignment and you’re psyched it’s all done until all of a sudden you realize you forgot to do a part of it and you freak out?

That’s how I’ve been feeling.

Glennon Doyle and Nadia Bolz-Weber talk about sharing from the scar, not the wound. This is something that took me many, many years to learn, but during the adulthood phase of my life, I’ve gotten good at it. I’ve learned to not write and share until something has passed, so that it’s not alarming, but more just facts that other people can read and relate to and feel less alone from.

Now, there is a time and place for sharing from the wound and I firmly believe that. Especially if you have a person or two you can talk to and unload to and be real with. That’s healing.  And, I think sometimes it’s okay to write from the wound, when it’s real and honest and not scary and would not make someone panic but might make them think, “Oh! It’s not just me. I’m not the only one who struggles/is still healing/has these experiences.”

So that’s what I was thinking could come from writing this. Just a little dose of being real, for the sake of being real, for the hope of connecting a thread from my heart to someone else’s.

I’m just going to tell it like it is:

I am well aware that healing is not linear and can take a long time. It’s just….it took a long time. A very long time. And I did so much work on so many things, and finally felt very healed. But I think I naively equated “healed” to “never struggling ever again.” And so when I started struggling again, it wasn’t just that it was intense feelings and thoughts, but the extreme layer of shock and self-judgment: How could this possibly be happening? I never once in my mind foresaw this as a possibility. Which is stupid. Idiot. Yes, I preach self-love and acceptance and all of that, and yet all I can feel for myself is embarrassment and shame. And that’s just the real truth.

I am having an intense influx of food and body thoughts for the first time in many, many years. I am very aware of why. But that doesn’t make it easier. It is distressing to me when every time I eat, a voice in my head that I haven’t heard in a decade whispers things that my brain latches onto. It’s not about acting on the thoughts – I am not. It’s that their mere presence takes up valuable real estate that I had back, and want back, and lead me to wonder, Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. Is it possible this could be a thing again? I never thought that could ever happen. It feels out of my control and it’s scary.

With bad luck around timing, I have additionally been on edge with some trauma-related things coming up for me. There is also a clear reason for this, but it is also not making it easier. You can cognitively know things and talk yourself down from them and rationalize in your brain all day long – but if it’s stuck in your brain and your body, it’s harder to shake. I again had that second layer of judgment and worry here – I thought I was past this. I did the work. It never occurred to me I could struggle with this again. I thought I was healed. Again. Out of control and scary.

I did a very nice job ignoring it all and pushing it aside for a little while, but we know how well that  goes, right? So, unsurprisingly, it all took up residence in my body. And it wasn’t until I was having the start of panic attacks again for the first time in a long time, until I was feeling my skin crawling, until I was getting nauseous for no reason, until headaches were starting, that I realized/decided, Oh, right. The body always tries to tell us something. I guess ignoring it isn’t really an option.

It will all straighten out, I know that. I worry it won’t, but I also know it will. Blips and valleys are not the same as backslides, and you can never really be back where you were because you’re always healing and moving forward.

So what is the point of all of this, there is should always be a point, right?

Well, I guess it’s to remind you (and me) that blips happen and once things get easier they aren’t always easy every single day forever and that doesn’t mean you’ve failed, it just means that’s how it goes. And that ignoring and stuffing things away rarely (never) works. And that you have to try really hard to not judge and not panic and not despair, because that just adds to an already difficult situation. And that you are not alone, and you are not crazy.