Darkness to Dialogue: Living Well With Mental Illness

Estimated Read Time: 7 minutes Summary Trauma and stress aren’t just in your mind; they live in your body. This post explores somatic psychology, showing how understanding and working with bodily sensations can strengthen emotional healing, reduce relapse risk, and create a more holistic recovery journey. Key Takeaway Somatic psychology connects body sensations to emotional healing, revealing how trauma is stored physically. Recognizing and working with these signals supports mental health recovery and sustainable emotional regulation. When the Body Remembers I remember the days when anxiety felt like a heavy weight pressing on my chest, and exhaustion seemed to settle deep in my muscles, no matter how much I rested. My body held stress and pain I couldn’t name; a silent echo of past trauma. "Healing my mind wasn’t enough; my body needed attention too." It took time to realize that trauma isn’t only a mental phenomenon. Somatic psychology taught me that my nervous system, mu...

When Memory Protects: The Link Between Trauma and Forgetting Have you ever looked back on a difficult time in your life and realized entire pieces were missing—conversations you can't recall, moments that feel foggy or distant? You're not alone. For many people, especially those who’ve experienced trauma, memory doesn’t behave like a straightforward timeline. Instead, the brain sometimes blurs, distorts, or blocks out painful memories as a survival response. This isn’t a flaw in your memory—it’s a reflection of just how deeply your mind tries to protect you. By exploring the connection between trauma and memory, we can better understand how the brain copes with overwhelming experiences, and why remembering—or not remembering—is a key part of healing. I can relate to this more than I ever thought possible. There are pieces of my past that I simply can’t recall—parts of my trauma that feel like they’ve been wiped away, as if my mind was trying to protect me from the pain. At ...

Mental healing is a deeply personal journey, one that feels both overwhelming and empowering at the same time. For years, I felt lost, as if recovery from the trauma I had experienced was something far beyond my reach. It all started when I found myself in 2 abusive relationships, a toxic cycle of domestic violence that left me broken in ways I hadn’t anticipated. It wasn’t just the physical pain; it was the emotional and psychological toll that wore me down, making me question my worth and my ability to ever be truly happy again. Before the abusive relationship was the sexual assault. I didn’t know how to cope with the swirling chaos of pain, fear, and anger. Every day felt like an uphill battle. The weight of those experiences lingered, coloring my perspective on life and how I saw myself. Healing, I thought, was a distant dream. My mind and heart were shattered, and the idea of putting the pieces back together seemed impossible. The road to recovery seemed so long, so difficult. For...