Safe Enough to Break
The first flash came from nowhere.
Just a split second.
Like a scene from a film I'd somehow forgotten.
I couldn't remember it.
But I knew it was true.
I'd only just woken up.
I opened my eyes...
and suddenly it was there.
A memory.
Not a complete one.
Just enough to leave me frozen.
I couldn't understand what had happened.
It felt so vivid.
So real.
Yet I had no memory of it ever happening.
How could something feel true...
when I couldn't remember it?
Within seconds, panic took over.
I felt sick.
Terrified.
Completely out of control.
I remember reaching for my phone to call my counsellor.
As I pressed the buttons, I couldn't even tell if I was really touching them.
Or whether I was dreaming.
I was completely disconnecting from myself.
I'd never experienced anything like it.
My counsellor told me to go straight to the mental health team.
She rang ahead to let them know I was coming.
By the time I arrived, I was diagnosed almost immediately.
At that moment, I genuinely believed my mind had broken.
Not just my heart.
My mind.
I couldn't imagine ever feeling normal again.
What I didn't understand then...
was why it had happened.
Later, my counsellor explained something that changed the way I saw everything.
She told me that sometimes, when we've spent years surviving, our minds protect us by burying things too painful to process.
Only when we finally feel safe...
do those buried memories begin to surface.
Not because we're becoming weaker.
But because, for the first time...
our minds believe we're finally strong enough to cope.
That explanation changed everything.
Because by then, something in my life had changed.
For the first time in years...
I felt safe.
I had someone who listened.
Someone who was there every single day.
Someone who never let me down.
Someone who stayed calm when I couldn't.
I didn't know it at the time.
But the very thing that made those memories appear...
was also the thing that would help me rebuild.
As time went on, he wanted to understand what was happening to me.
He learned.
He listened.
He asked questions.
But more than anything...
he gave me something I'd never really experienced before.
Boundaries.
Kind, consistent boundaries.
He wasn't afraid to tell me when my behaviour wasn't okay.
He didn't shout.
He didn't leave.
He simply stayed.
Again and again.
No matter how hard I pushed him away.
Slowly...
without either of us really noticing...
I began to change.
Not because my past disappeared.
Not because it stopped hurting.
But because I finally understood it.
The past explained so much about the woman I'd become.
The fear.
The reactions.
The patterns.
But it no longer got to decide who I would become next.
That's one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned.
Our past may explain us.
But it never gets to define us.
And it never gets to write the final chapter.
We do.
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