“The pain came back, not because I failed, but because my body finally trusted me to feel it”

I didn’t expect this.

I thought I had done the work.
Written the blogs. Had the therapy. Shared my story. Survived it.
But here I am breath short, chest tight, nervous system frozen realising that maybe healing doesn’t mean it never comes back. Maybe healing means I notice it differently now.

Lately, I’ve felt a wave come over me.
Not a physical one, but something emotional, deep, somatic like a tidal pull in my body. And I think it started the moment I began speaking to journalists.

You would think being in articles, on radio, and recognised by charities would feel like the after part of the journey. The victory lap. The “I made it through and now I help others” chapter.

But here’s the truth:
Talking about my brain injury recovery has reopened something I didn’t know was still sore.

I Froze When They Asked About My Future

People keep asking me about my career now.
Where I see myself. What I want to “do” long-term.
I freeze every single time.

I feel like there’s this invisible wall between me and that question like my nervous system hasn’t caught up to the idea that I have a future to even imagine. For so long, I was just trying to survive the day, the moment, the symptom, the scan, the silence.

The truth is, I didn’t grow up imagining dream jobs like my peers.
I didn’t spend hours fantasising about university courses or future homes or careers.

I was stuck in survival mode.
And in survival mode, the future doesn’t exist. Only the next moment does.

So now, when people ask about my “five-year plan,” I feel like a fraud.
My nervous system still flinches.
My body still doesn’t feel safe enough to dream.

I thought I had “processed” my trauma. I thought because I could write about it, talk about it, and even speak publicly about it — that meant I was done.
But healing doesn’t move in straight lines or clean timelines. It loops. It spirals. It returns when you reach a new layer of life.

And right now, this new layer, this visibility, this recognition, this openness has exposed something raw. The thing I’m realising is that trauma doesn’t just live in our memories. It lives in our nervous systems.
And my nervous system remembers.

I was filling out a form the other day about my future ambitions.
And I just… stared at the screen.
Blank. Paralyzed. Terrified.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have dreams. It was that I didn’t feel safe enough to speak them out loud. What if I dream again and something takes it away? What if I say it out loud and it doesn’t come true? There was a time when I didn’t know if I’d finish school.
There was a time I didn’t know who I was without appointments and quiet grief.

And I think there’s still a part of me younger, scared, unhealed that hasn’t been told: “It’s okay to want things again.”

Why It Hurts Again (And Why That’s Actually a Sign of Healing)

It’s taken me a while to understand this, but here’s the truth:
The reason my trauma is resurfacing now isn’t because I’m broken and not because I’m not used to the pressure of people hearing my story.
It’s because my nervous system finally feels safe enough to let it rise.

I used to think healing was a straight line: something awful happens, then you deal with it, then it’s over.
But trauma doesn’t follow that pattern. Trauma is stored in your body, in your subconscious, in the parts of you that had to go quiet to survive.

And when you’re in survival mode, your brain isn’t designed to process trauma. It’s designed to protect you from it.

When we go through something traumatic like my brain injury our nervous system can become overwhelmed.
Instead of processing the experience, the brain (especially the amygdala) flags it as dangerous and your body stores it away.

That’s why people “shut down” or “freeze” in traumatic moments.
It’s called dorsal vagal response — the most immobilised state of your nervous system, where you literally go numb to protect yourself.

And it’s not weakness. It’s biology.

The thing is, that trauma doesn’t disappear.
It stays tucked away until your body senses that it’s safe enough to revisit it.

So when I started feeling this new wave of sadness, panic, or freeze responses while talking about my future or speaking to the press it wasn’t because I was going backwards.

It was because my nervous system finally whispered:
“It’s safe now. You can let this out.”

Why Trauma Can Resurface Years Later

Healing isn’t linear because safety doesn’t arrive all at once.
Sometimes, your body has to wait months even years before it feels grounded enough to unlock what it buried.

That’s why some people have emotional flashbacks when they move house, get into a healthy relationship, or finally rest after years of stress.
The body goes: “Ah… we’re not in danger anymore.”
And all that energy, emotion, grief, and fear that was paused… starts to unfreeze.

That’s what’s happening to me right now.

“Healing isn’t about never hurting again. It’s about finally feeling safe enough to feel it”

It’s not regression. It’s revelation.

This Is What Healing Really Looks Like

Healing isn’t the absence of pain.
It’s the ability to meet it differently.

Now, when the trauma returns I notice.
I breathe.
I put my hand on my heart.
I speak gently to myself, instead of running away.

And that right there? That’s integration.
That’s the real, raw middle part of healing no one talks about when your body starts to trust you again.
When it says, “You’re finally safe enough to remember.”

If you’re reading this and you’ve ever:

• Frozen when someone asked about your future
• Felt waves of trauma after thinking you were “over it”
• Been scared to dream again
  Then please hear me when I say: you’re not alone.

You’re not behind. You’re not weak. You’re not failing.
You’re healing.
And healing is complicated.

Your trauma resurfacing doesn’t mean you’re broken it means you’ve reached a new threshold. And thresholds are painful because they mean we’re crossing into something new.

Remember, it all starts with self love

-M