In the beginning, healing can be so destabilizing. It can exacerbate symptoms, heighten anxiety, make space for big overwhelming emotions.
So if you feel like you’re going backwards, know that this can be part of the process.
It can feel unfair to be met with shaky intensity when we’re trying to recover from a traumatic event that destabilized us. But healing can be cyclical, spiralic, a swirl of beginnings, middles, and ends that aren’t even ends. So the intensity isn’t strictly the stuff of beginnings.
You might periodically feel destabilized, sucker-punched by waves of grief that take the breath from your lungs and drop you to your creaky knees. These dips and rises might not change, but our ability to be with the dips and rises, our ability to be gentle with ourselves, to turn to our tools and ask for support - this might change, and can make a hard process a little easier.
Keep going. Keep resting. You’re doing great and it’s so normal to feel like you’re not.