Part 2 - Self Healing

WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE

Self-healing is not what I thought it was.

It is not fixing yourself.

It is not becoming unbroken.

It is not waking up one day and feeling permanently okay.

For a long time, I thought healing meant getting back to who I was before everything happened.

Before the trauma.
Before my body started reacting.
Before FND and PPPD became part of my lived reality.

But there is no going back.

And honestly, I don’t want to.

Self-healing, for me, has been slower. Messier. Less aesthetic than I expected.

It has looked like noticing my nervous system going into overdrive and not abandoning myself inside it.

It has looked like dizziness showing up and me learning not to immediately spiral into fear.

It has looked like sitting with sensations in my body I don’t fully understand yet—and not making them mean I am broken.

It has looked like learning that my body is not the enemy.

Even when it feels unfamiliar.
Even when it feels unpredictable.
Even when it feels like it is doing things I can’t control.

Especially then.

Self-healing has also been grief.

Grief for the version of me who didn’t have this awareness yet.

Grief for the ease I used to take for granted.
Grief for relationships where I abandoned myself and didn’t even realise it at the time.
Grief for the body I used to trust without question.

And underneath that grief… something quieter has been forming.

A different kind of relationship with myself.

Not perfect.

But honest.

I used to think healing meant eliminating symptoms.

But with time and living with things like FND and PPPD—I’ve learned something different.

Healing is not always symptom-free living.

Sometimes it is learning not to fear your symptoms.

Sometimes it is reducing the panic around what your body is doing so your nervous system can slowly settle again.

Sometimes it is rebuilding trust with yourself inside discomfort.

That is not a straight line.

Some days I feel grounded.
Some days I don’t.
Some days my body feels clear.
Some days it doesn’t.

But I don’t turn on myself the way I used to.

That is a different kind of healing.

Self-healing has also meant learning boundaries.

Not as a concept but as a felt experience.

Saying no and feeling guilt in my body.
Saying yes and noticing when it costs me too much.
Slowly learning that love should not require me to disappear to keep it.

It has meant unlearning the idea that I am responsible for holding everything together at my own expense.

And learning that I matter even when I am not coping perfectly.

It has also meant facing the way I used to cope.

The numbing.
The overthinking.
The over giving.
The patterns I used to judge myself for before I understood they were survival responses.

I don’t shame those parts of me anymore.

I understand them now.

They were trying to keep me afloat in a nervous system that didn’t yet feel safe.

Self-healing is not glamorous.

It is repetitive.

It is noticing the same pattern again and again—and responding just a little differently each time.

It is learning to stay.

Stay with my body.
Stay with discomfort.
Stay with myself.

Without leaving.

And maybe the most honest part of all of this is:

I am still becoming.

There is no finished version of me waiting at the end of this.

Just a quieter relationship with my own nervous system.
A softer relationship with my body.
A more honest relationship with myself.

And that is enough.

More than enough.