Content Warning: This post discusses trauma, sexual assault, and the psychological impacts of healing. Please take care while reading.
Read Time Est. 5-7 Minutes
I’m not sure anyone has really been keeping up, but if you have you may have noticed that I haven’t posted in a while. I had been feeling very disconnected from what happened to me and at the time, it felt best to keep it that way.
But I’m back!
I always thought the goal of healing was to get as far away as possible from what had happened to me. It sounds good in theory, right?
In reality, though, it can feel a little unsettling to feel so disconnected from something that had such a heavy and all-encompassing impact.
The Distance That Feels Like Denial
One of the most disorienting parts of trauma healing can be the emotional distance that forms over time. You may know what happened to you, remember it clearly, and even have processed it deeply-and yet, there are moments where it feels so far away that it almost doesn’t seem real.
This strange disconnection is more than just emotional numbness; it’s actually a protective mechanism your brain uses to keep you safe.
How Trauma Changes Memory
Trauma memories are stored differently than typical memories. Instead of being filed away neatly like a story with a beginning, middle, and end, they’re often fragmented, sensory-heavy, and lacking in context.
These memories are encoded through the amygdala, the brain’s fear center, rather than the hippocampus, which processes time and sequence.
Because of this, trauma can feel both immediate and distant-like something that happened yesterday and also to someone else entirely.
As you heal, your brain may “tuck away” these memories to protect you from being overwhelmed by them again.
Why Distance Doesn’t Mean You’re Faking It
But that disconnection isn’t a sign that your healing is inauthentic-it’s actually the result of the emotional intensity being dialed down over time.
Your nervous system has worked hard to protect you, and in doing so, it may create space between your present self and the rawness of what you experienced.
Sounds great, right? The difficulty is that when these memories resurface-often without warning-it can feel like they crash through that distance all at once.
The jarring nature of those moments doesn’t mean you’ve regressed; it’s just your brain still learning how to hold your truth gently, with safety and presence.
So this is what I’ve been dealing with for the last little bit. Most of the time it’s like it didn’t even happen to me. Like it’s so unbelievable, that it couldn’t possibly have.
The Return of the Memories
But recently I’ve been having more and more moments where reality hits hard. In the last week I’ve woken up twice out of nightmares where I’m right back in it.
And the first time that reality hit, it did feel like a regression. After my assault, I did so much work to heal. I survived battle after battle and trudged my way to peace and acceptance.
So why did this new phase feel so much like the exact place I started-in denial?
At the beginning of my healing journey, it was difficult and painful work to break through each layer of denial. Suddenly it felt like I was right back in it.
This has been beyond frustrating and confusing for me. Am I supposed to go through the process again? I’ve learned time and time again that denial doesn’t truly protect me, but I already did this work and I don’t want to revisit it. Honestly, I feel afraid to.
If you relate to this, if you feel like you’re back in denial after you already did the work to come to acceptance, I want to gently offer to you that this is not a regression, even if it feels that way.
You’re Not Back at the Beginning
Maybe its like a spiral staircase. You’re not back at the beginning-you’re revisiting similar emotions, but from a completely different place in your healing.
Back then, denial was your brain’s way of surviving the initial shock. It was a shield against something too big and too overwhelming to hold all at once.
Now, what you’re feeling is likely not that same raw, survival-based denial-it’s distance. And that distance is something your brain has built through the process of healing.
Holding Truth and Distance at the Same Time
As you became safer, more regulated, more able to live outside of survival mode, your brain started letting the trauma fade a little into the background. That’s part of healing.
But sometimes, when the reality comes crashing back in, it’s like your system doesn’t know how to hold both the distance and the truth at the same time.
It’s jarring because healing doesn’t erase the horror of what happened-it just allows us to carry it differently.
And when that memory shows up again, it doesn’t mean you’re going backward. Maybe it just means your mind is still integrating, still adjusting to a life where what happened is real, but no longer defines you in the same way.
Holding Space for the Complexity of Healing
So if you’re in this place too-numb, confused, distanced, or overwhelmed-I hope you know that this is still part of healing.
You are not broken, and you are not going backwards. This space between the past and the present, between knowing and believing, is a natural and necessary part of integration.
You are not alone in this strange in-between. And even here, even now, you are healing.
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