The Breakthrough Story

“There is something wrong with me,” she repeats over and over again. She desperately needs to find a solution to fix herself and return to normal functioning like she should be. The existential dread consumes her, but she does not realize what it means.

It gnaws at her like a parasite, draining her life force for some need to survive. She wants it dead. “Please, please help me, someone! Fix me! I need this gone.” She cannot handle this feeling anymore. It drowns her and burns her up at the same time. She cannot eat. She cannot sleep. She cannot think of anything but this feeling. Her mind creates stories of her failings and how she will self-destruct at any moment. It’s just around the corner. She thinks of suicide. She runs to the nearest person so she won’t be alone, even if that person isn’t who she wants it to be. She runs away and hides in her closet. She takes pills. She scrolls social media. She cries and cries. “What is wrong with me! she screams at herself.” Not loudly, but silently in her head so no one else knows.

Years, decades later, and countless doctors, therapists, friends, family, and self-help books have not helped. Neither has the pills or the numbing addictions she has gathered to cope. Her body is wearing down, and her mind says, “See? I told you it would.” That confirms her belief that she is wrong and on her way to annihilation.

No one told her what was happening. Maybe they didn’t know. Perhaps they were the ones hurting her. Maybe they were so focused on fixing that they forgot about listening.

Until one day, she hears the words from someone who finally fucking gets it. She doesn’t know why this person broke through her barriers and saw what she needed them to see, but they did. And for the first time, there was a break to her dread. There was a fall to the constant rise of terror and rage. There was a tiny, tiny voice inside of her, feeling heard and supported.

Her inner child, perhaps not to her knowledge, finally came out of the shadows of screaming and sighed, feeling a wee bit of peace of not being alone with her dread anymore, having someone see her in pain and let her know that nothing was wrong with her.

You see, this is the truth of what happened.

Something is wrong with me – her breakthrough

When she was young, so young that she was in the womb and the first few months of breathing, she was rejected by her mother and father. Denied for being alive. For existing. Why? Who knows. So many reasons. She was dismissed because she was female, and, in her family, misogyny ruled the world. Maybe her parents, who did not want her, might have forced her to arrive anyway. She might have been born into a war zone where domestic violence ran the household. There are so many reasons why this could have happened, and while the story does help the healing, the acknowledgment that there was a break in her life force severed her from fully feeling it. She fragmented her trauma unconsciously to survive her environment. It was not her fault. She did what she had to do, and with proper care, it might never have happened in the first place.

She needed someone to adore, love, want, and attune to her needs with stability and safety. Babies are mere sponges for life. They cannot do anything on their own for quite a while. When they do not get the attention they deserve to thrive, they remember it. Their little nervous systems freeze and shut down to play dead in a world they shouldn’t be in. As they grow up, this narrative runs in their mind. If they are to be dead but are not, there must be something wrong with them. Why aren’t they gone? Or fully alive? Why are they suffering so much? Growing up without a comforting voice telling you are okay, the only option is to internalize the feeling that they are not.

And so, existential dread grows like a parasite, continuing to fragment her from her authentic self. It longs for a bridge to return to where it wasn’t hurt, screams for it like a baby would for food or to be held. It is still a baby. Maybe still be a fetus. It does not know anything but yells to be heard. It dreads forever screaming.

But that person has allowed her a breakthrough, someone to lean on because they understand. She finally can turn towards her dread. She feels supported enough to stop running and fighting and spin around.

So she does. And the inner baby sighs in contentment.

Now, the journey to self-love and safety begins.