A Letter to Someone Who Has Experienced Extreme Trauma

There are days I still feel like I’m moving in slow motion while the rest of the world rushes past me. Days when I touch a memory and it disintegrates in my hands. Some days the fear returns even though I’m safe now. Trauma doesn’t always scream, sometimes it just vibrates quietly in your bones, pretending to be part of you even though you know it wasn’t not that long ago.

I’ve learned that the world isn’t always good at talking about trauma, especially the kind that splits your timeline into Before and After. The violent kind that makes you forget what you saw or question if it even happened or it was some nightmare that was just super vivid. Dark, deep trauma that makes you tired in a way that sleep can’t reach and haunts your soul until it feels too heavy to even move.

So I wrote this letter for the ones who feel like that. For you, for me, for anyone who has ever survived something that shattered them and then quietly kept going.

This letter is a place to rest and a place to be seen. I want you to remember that you are not alone even in your darkest days.

To the One Sitting in the Aftermath,

still blinking through the smoke, and trying to name the shape of what broke you, this is for you.

Not to fix you or to tell you to be strong, and trust me when I say nothing will ever make it prettier.

But I’m just here to see you, to sit beside you in the wreckage.
To say the thing that maybe no one else has said yet to you, that I believe you and it wasn’t your fault.
I believe what happened was real, I believe what you felt, and I believe how it changed you.

We talk about trauma like it’s a moment, but it’s not.
It’s an echo, a reorganization of your nervous system, a haunting so severe it aches.
It’s your brain doing everything it can to keep you alive, even if that means forgetting, freezing, or fleeing in ways you don’t really understand.

Trauma distorts memory because your brain isn’t trying to create a record, it’s just trying to protect you. When things happen that are too big, too fast, or too much, your mind may tuck them behind a veil. Trust me though, they aren’t gone, just hidden behind some fogged glass.

And when you remember it…maybe in flashes, in dreams, in triggers (eek, I hate that word), you might wonder why it feels so surreal and why your body reacts before your brain does.
That’s not weakness, that’s your biology using what it knows for survival.

If your memory is a fog, patchy, strange, unreliable…if you can almost touch it some days, and other days it feels like maybe it never happened at all, you aren’t losing your mind.

That’s just how trauma talks, in static or stories told from underwater.

You’re not broken and never will be. You’re not made of glass even though you have moments it feels like it. You’re reshaped and resilient, and that’s allowed.

The Slow-Motion Feeling

Maybe you’ve felt it too, the way time moves differently now.
It first it felt like I was stuck in slow motion while the world spuns by at full speed.
Like you’re watching yourself through glass, your thoughts just slightly outside of your skull.
You’re both here and not. Time bends in ways that I’d never thought about before and loops seemed to form in connections I never saw before.

That’s not weakness, that’s freeze. It’s a state of stillness your body uses when it doesn’t know how to run or fight.
You didn’t choose it and you absolutely didn’t fail. Your body chose survival in the only way it could, so don’t be angry at it.

You’re recovering from something that tore your nervous system wide open, it just didn’t leave any signs on the outside.

Shadow People and Thin Veils

And maybe you’ve seen things, felt things, seen movement at the edge of your vision and shadows that don't belong to anything.
The weight of presence with no name.

You're not imagining it and it’s not you losing your mind.
Sleep deprivation, grief, dissociation, spiritual sensitivity, call it whatever you want and what makes you most comfortable.
But when the veil is thin, you start noticing what others don’t.

It doesn’t have to mean something is wrong, maybe it means something is witnessing you.
Or it’s your soul trying to say there is more than this pain left in life, there’s mystery here, too.

I want to say something that might surprise you a little too, you’re allowed to feel sorry for yourself.

Yes. You really are.

You’re allowed to say, “this hurts and it shouldn’t have happened.” You’re also allowed to wonder why it had to happen to you.
And you’re definitely allowed to mourn the version of you that existed before.
Cry for the safety you lost and ache for softness you didn’t get to keep as it was torn away from you.

Grief is not self-pity, it’s recognition mixed with self-witnessing, and it’s actually pretty sacred in moments like this.

When the Days Are Too Heavy

If today the sorrow is louder than the hope, if your hands are trembling and your heart feels ancient and tired,
please know that you’re not doing this wrong.

You’re healing, even when it looks like falling apart.

And healing does not always look like smiling in the mirror or meditating in the sunlight, that’s just want everyone wants it to look like. Sometimes it looks like staring into space or crying in the grocery store.
Sometimes it looks like writing five blog posts to feel real again and knowing they might never reach anyone out there.
It can also look like resting even though guilt whispers you haven’t done enough.

But you have. You really and truly have.

These may not be cures (there is no cure, I’m sorry), but they’re anchors, and sometimes that’s all you can grab onto when the storm rolls in.

Warm water helps ground me a lot. Baths, showers, tea, basically anything that reminds your body it’s safe and being held.

Gentle music or silence can help too. Let sound soothe or disappear. If I can recommend Tibetan bowl music, piano, classical, or nature sounds, these are a little more soothing than what plays on the radio all the time.

Try breathing with your hands on your chest, feel it rise and fall. That rhythm is yours, it means you’re still here.

Tell the truth, even if it’s just to yourself. I’m tired, I’m scared, I’m healing and that’s a messy and really really hard process.

Sometimes letting someone sit beside you in it is also helpful. Even if it’s a voice like mine, through a screen.

You don’t have to fix everything, you just have to stay.

For the Days You…

Forget what it felt like before the trauma, you’re still in there. Even if you can’t see right now, I can see it for you. It’s okay to take a break from being a person if you need to.

If you feel like you’re too far gone just know that you’re not. The fact that you’re still here means there’s still hope. You’re reading this for a reason, and I’d like to think the universe wanted to make you feel a little less alone when you needed it the most.

If you think you’re imagining it, you’re not. Trauma distorts perception, but not truth.

If you don’t want to sleep because the other world feels safer, that’s okay. But when you’re ready, come home to rest. You deserve peace. You’ve been through enough by now.

I know that there are days where you hate that it still hurts, but it hurts because you loved, you hoped, you tried your best. And that is beautiful.

You’re not here by accident. You found me and my words for some reason even if we both don’t know what it is.
You’re not fragile, you’re just carrying something immense and survived something that rearranged the stars for you.

But you’re not your pain or your fear, or even your trauma.

You’re the one who walked through the fire and lived, and even if the world doesn’t see it yet, I do. So if no one else tells you this today, let me: you’re a warrior of life and a genuinely impressive person.

With all the love and good vibes in the universe,
Michele

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Disclaimer: This article discusses mental health and trauma. It is not a substitute for professional advice. If you are struggling, please seek support from a qualified mental health professional.