Healing, Glowing, and Growing – One Act of Self-Care At a Time

Depression that stems from trauma isn’t something I can simply “get over”. It’s not a chapter that ends neatly or a feeling that passes overnight. For me, it’s a landscape I have had to learn to navigate – sometimes crawling….. sometimes standing tall…..but oftentimes just simply trying to survive through it all.

There are days when anger sits heavy in my chest. Days when sadness feels endless and hopelessness whispers that I’ll never be free from what happened to me. On those days, I struggle to find forgiveness – both for others, but more importantly, for myself.

1. Living With the Echos of Trauma

My depression isn’t just sadness. It’s the echoes of moments that changed me. The weight of things I couldn’t control, and the silence that followed when I was numb and needing understanding the most.

The hardest part for me is how trauma has rewired my mind. It changes how I see myself, how I don’t trust others, and how I view the World. Some days I feel grounded, like I’ve made peace with my past, but most days I feel like I’m right back in that pain again – raw, small, and uncertain.

The cycle of healing and hurting can feel endless. I’ve learned that it’s not weakness; it’s the reality of living with wounds that never fully dissapeared- they just became a part of me.

2. The Battle Between Forgiveness and Anger

Forgiveness is something that I have wrestled with for years. People often talk about it as though it’s a single choice – as if one day you decide to forgive and the pain simply dissolves. ” Forgive them for you”, or ” Give it to God” I have heard countless times, but for me, forgiveness has been a process of peeling back layers of anger, grief, disbelief and SO MUCH PAIN.

There’s the forgiveness I have had to attempt towards those who’ve hurt me, those who lacked emotional intelligence to love me in the way I needed, those who mistook my kindness as a way to dismiss the word “no”, and those who’ve rejected my pain when I needed compassion the most. But there’s also the other kind of forgiveness I have had to try to navigate – the forgiveness for myself.

I have blamed myself for how my trauma has shaped me. For the times I have reacted from a place of pain and survival instead of a place of calm and peace. For the relationships I have damaged while trying to survive. For the mother I couldn’t always be when I have been lost in my own healing.

I am learning, very painfully and slowly that forgiving myself doesn’t mean I excuse the mistakes or the pain I have endured…..It means that I am FINALLY giving myself permission to heal from it.

3. Learning to Offer Myself Grace

There are days when I wake up feeling capable, ready to take on life again, saying to myself, “I’ve got this, let’s crush this shit!” Then there are days when depression and anxiety make even breathing feel like an accomplishment. On those days, I’m trying my hardest to lean into self-grace.

Grace means allowing myself to rest when my body and mind are heavy. For me, it means giving myself permission to allow the space to feel everything that I am feeling, instead of locking it up tight into my little boxes in my mind. It means accepting that healing is not a straight path, that there will be setbacks – that it is perfectly okay for me to be okay one minute and a broken down, hot mess, the next. It is about speaking kindness into existence for myself and allowing tenderness into my self-talk when old habits of shame begin to rise.

Grace is slowly becoming a new anchor for me. When I can’t forgive, when I can’t stop crying, when I am searching for a smile, and when I can’t find hope – grace can remind me that showing up to fight another day, even imperfectly, is still progress.

4. How I Recenter When Anxiety and Panic from Depression Take Over

When anxiety and panic begin to consume me, I try to remind myself that “I’m a badass bitch” and that healing doesn’t mean the darkness disappears. It just means that I have to keep finding ways to bring myself back to the light, no matter how dim it feels. One of the most helpful tools I’ve learned to keep the self-harm thoughts at bay, and to lean into often, is a simple mental health framework called G.R.A.P.E.S. It stands for: Gentle with self, Relaxation, Accomplishment, Pleasure, Exercise, and Social.

I never manage to do all of them, but even focusing on one or two helps me find my way back to centered.

G – Gentle with Self: I start by being gentle with myself- speaking to my pain with kindness instead of criticism. When my thoughts begin to spiral into guilt or shame, I remind myself that I’m doing the best I can with what I have. Sometimes that means allowing myself to rest without feeling like I’ve failed.

R – Relaxation: Relaxation doesn’t come easy when my mind is racing, but I try to give my body a chance to exhale. I will take slow, deep breaths, concentrating on a greater exhale than an inhale. I also try listening to calming sounds and wrapping myself in a weighted blanket. I have learned that peace doesn’t have to be perfect; it often looks like just getting through this exact moment in time to continue the fight.

A – Accomplishment: When depression robs me of motivation, I redefine what “accomplishment” means for me. It’s not always a big task – oftentimes it’s about acknowledging getting out of bed, washing the dishes, or stepping outside for fresh air as a small victory. It’s important for me to allow the small victories and not to minimize them. Progress, no matter how small, is still progress.

P – Pleasure: There are often times when trying to find pleasure seems out of reach for me. I keep a checklist on my fridge of things that I have found help me when I need just something small to find. Lighting some wax melts or candles, coloring, and taking an Epsom salt bath are some of my favorite things to do for pleasure.

E – Exercise: For me, exercise is limited, but I try to at least create moments of movement for myself. If nothing else can be done, I at least want to stretch and relax tight and tense muscles. I also most certainly consider my visits to physical therapy and the chiropractor under my exercise accomplishments 🙂 Every bit of movement helps me reconnect to my body, which trauma can often make me feel detached from.

S – Social: Isolation is my safe place during intense times of depression, panic, and anxiety. The social aspect of g.r.a.p.e.s. is by far the hardest one for me to do and incorporate into my days. Like other portions of the g.r.a.p.e.s. I am learning to keep it small and to simply just give it a shot. For me, social looks like simply sitting outside with my neighbor or going to the laundromat together weekly. I don’t always have the words to explain how I’m feeling, and when I do try to talk everything comes out all at once. But I have found that being around safe people, who don’t judge me, and allow me the space to vent, helps to remind me that I am not alone.

These six steps aren’t a cure, but I use them as a map – a way to gently guide myself when depression tries with everything it has to make me forget who I am. Every effort is a small act of rebellion against the weight I carry in my chest from my past.

5. Holding on to Hope

Healing from trauma isn’t about pretending it never happened (which is definitely how I have addressed it in the past). I am learning its about reclaiming the parts of me that were buried beneath the pain, and allowing those parts of me a safe space to feel, to heal, and to grow.

Grace and forgiveness never come easily, but every day I choose to try again – and that, in itself, is progress and healing.

A Note to My Readers

If you’re walking a similar path, or you know someone that is, please know that you ( and they) are not alone. Healing is messy, and its okay to feel lost sometimes. We have to try to forgive ourselves for that and wake up each day trying again, and again, and again…..that’s courage.

I share my journey not because I have it all figured out, but because I know how isolating this struggle can be. Together, we can learn to give ourselves the grace we were never taught to extend. Together we can heal. Together we can grow into the amazing people we are destined to be.

You can explore the tools I have created for my own personal healing journey here:

👉 Stan Store: https://stan.store/Shroompy