Part 1 - Self-Healing

Is Not What I Thought It Was

I used to think self-healing meant fixing myself.

That there would be a point where everything clicked into place and I’d finally feel normal again.

Calm. Stable. Untriggered. Unbothered.

Like I would graduate out of struggle and never revisit it.

But that’s not what happened.

Self-healing, for me, has looked nothing like an arrival point.

It has looked like learning to stay with myself when I don’t feel okay.

Even when my body feels unfamiliar.
Even when symptoms show up without warning.
Even when my nervous system reacts before I have time to understand why.

Especially then.

There were things I didn’t understand at first like how deeply trauma can live in the body, or how conditions like FND (Functional Neurological Disorder) and PPPD (Persistent Postural-Perceptual Dizziness) can shift how you experience your own physical reality.

There were days I would feel dizzy, unsteady, disconnected from my body and assume something was “wrong with me” in a way I could think my way out of.

But healing didn’t respond to logic.

It responded to safety.

And safety wasn’t something I could force. It had to be built.

Slowly. Repeatedly. Over time.

Self-healing became less about eliminating symptoms and more about changing my relationship to them.

Instead of panicking when my body reacted, I started noticing it.

Instead of spiralling into fear, I started pausing.

Instead of abandoning myself, I started staying.

Not perfectly.

But differently.

I also had to unlearn the idea that healing is linear.

Some days I feel grounded and clear.

Some days I don’t.

Some days my nervous system feels steady.

Some days it doesn’t.

But none of that means I’m going backwards.

It just means I’m human with a nervous system that is still learning.

And maybe the biggest shift of all:

I stopped trying to become someone who never struggles

and started becoming someone who doesn’t abandon herself when she does.

That changed everything.