I have been thinking lately about my life. A life lived mostly to please others or to keep myself safe. I am allowing myself to dream about what I really want, like, need, and what brings me joy.

Understanding my past and just how trauma programmed me to behave in certain ways, ways that were not how I actually wanted but how I learned to protect myself from more harm and trauma. Now that I am in a relatively safe place, I am learning to recognize the trauma responses and catch myself. I can stop, analyze, and then take a moment to check in how I really feel and express that feeling.

It isn’t easy. I spend a lot of time alone. I spend a lot of time in a dissociative state outwardly while inside there is so much chaos and conversation happening. I can’t explain it.

It is like slowly unraveling parts of a tapestry and then restitching to correct. It has to be done carefully or the whole thing could unravel and be destroyed. It is a necessary work though, I am healing. This is my life, my tapestry. The rest of the canvas is empty, and I get to decide what it will look like.