The last few days, I’ve been writing about survival mode, emotional release, and the anger that’s been rising to the surface — the kind of anger that comes from finally slowing down enough to feel what the body has been holding for years.
What I didn’t expect was how this week would pull me deeper into memories I’ve tried to avoid for over sixteen years. Memories tied to the trauma I’m only now beginning to name. Memories that still make my inner critic scream louder than my truth.
For so long, I convinced myself that what happened couldn’t “count” as trauma — let alone anything as serious as assault.
I told myself I was overreacting.
That I should just move on.
That other people had it worse.
That because I stayed, because I didn’t fight, because I went numb… it didn’t “qualify.”
I swallowed that narrative until it felt like fact.
But deep down, another part of me — the part I kept buried — knew better.
Because the closest I’ve ever been to suicide wasn’t during the hardest years of my childhood… it was while living in the same home with him.
That alone says everything I spent more than a decade trying not to admit.
And this week, as the anger started rising, the memories came with it — the ones tied to those moments when he used emotional pressure and vulnerability to take what he wanted, even when I was crying, uncomfortable, or scared. The ones where my pain didn’t matter. The ones where he walked away afterward while I lay there sobbing.
It’s painful to admit how long I minimized it.
How often I rewrote the story to protect him instead of myself.
How many times my inner critic whispered:
“Maybe you misunderstood.”
“Maybe it wasn’t coercion.”
“Maybe you should’ve spoken up.”
“Maybe it was your fault.”
That voice kept me silent for years.
But my body never forgot.
And as I sit with these memories, something else is becoming clearer — something I’ve avoided connecting for years:
The chronic pelvic pain that started shortly after giving birth wasn’t random.
It wasn’t “just postpartum.”
It wasn’t something I imagined, exaggerated, or caused by stress.
It was my body screaming.
Back then, I didn’t have language for the pain.
All I knew was that it was sharp, persistent, and life-altering — and it only intensified as time passed. I kept asking myself why my body hurt so much, why nothing eased the pain, why every part of me seemed to slowly shut down. I pushed through it, told myself I could handle it, pretended it was normal.
But now?
Now I can see how the pain aligned with everything I refused to feel.
My body had been carrying trauma long before I admitted there was trauma to carry.
The more I swallowed the memories, the louder my body became.
The symptoms spread.
The fatigue became crushing.
My system buckled under the weight of everything I was trying to hold inside.
Over the years, it got worse — to the point where the pain, the exhaustion, the inflammation, and the collapse of my nervous system made it impossible to keep working. Not because I lacked strength — but because no one can carry emotional trauma, physical pain, and survival mode indefinitely.
And now, as the pieces start connecting after sixteen years… it hits me:
My body wasn’t betraying me.
It was trying to protect me.
It was trying to tell the truth I wasn’t ready to speak.
MST and betrayal trauma don’t always leave visible marks — sometimes they bury themselves deep into muscles, fascia, organs, and nerves. Sometimes the body becomes the messenger long before the mind is ready to listen.
And this week, as the anger cracked open old wounds, the truth came with it.
This isn’t about staying stuck in the past — it’s about finally acknowledging the full story so I can stop carrying it in silence. It’s about creating space for the version of me who was scared, manipulated, ignored, and left alone in her pain.
And today, this is where I am:
I’m beginning the part of healing I avoided the longest.
I’m connecting the dots my mind refused to see.
And I’m finally listening to the truth my body has been trying to tell me for sixteen years.
It’s messy.
It’s painful.
But it’s real.
And for the first time, I’m not turning away.
You can explore the tools I have created for my own personal healing journey here:
👉 Stan Store: https://stan.store/Shroompy
Healing, Glowing, and Growing - One Act of Self-Care At a Time 
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