I remember the first time I thought……with almost complete disbelief and at the same time 100% belief:

"I'm not crazy."

I had started remembering suppressed and repressed trauma.

As some of those memories came back, other moments from my life started making sense too.

I remembered times I had acted "weird."

Times my reactions seemed way too big……or way too small.

Times I couldn't explain why I did what I did, felt what I felt, or reacted the way I reacted.

I had definitely wondered if I was crazy.

And more than wondering, I felt crazy. My whole body felt crazy.

And I definitely felt like other people sometimes thought I was crazy too. And that really bothered me. So I would do and think more things that seemed crazy. The cycle just kept going.

When I started remembering the why……Not all the pieces came back. Not everything suddenly made sense.

But as enough pieces fell into place, I remember taking a deep breath…..perhaps deeper than I ever had up to that point…..and thinking to myself, “Wow, that was a really big breath.”

And then saying out loud:

I'm not crazy.

And then just for good measure, I might have - okay, I did - yell it for anyone to hear….

I'm not crazy!!!

Which might have made me sound even more crazy and I finally didn’t care. It felt so liberating.

There was so much validation in those words.

I had questioned so many things about my reactions and experiences.

And sometimes I had coped by not questioning any of it…..by being blind to all of it.

Both forms of questioning (or not) were because that was what I needed to do in those moments.

But now I had some understanding of what had been happening internally.

And that validation and understanding began moving me toward something I desperately needed:

Self-validation.

It gave me room for clean sadness, rage, disbelief and so many other emotions that needed to be honored and processed.

Some of those also included pride, self respect and trust in myself.

That first realization didn't make my trauma responses disappear.

I still had plenty of moments when I felt crazy.

In fact, there was another part of my healing journey where "I'm not crazy" sounded more like:

I know all the reasons why I feel this way...and I still can't change any of it.

That was its own kind of crazy.

Understanding why my body reacted the way it did didn't automatically give me the ability to respond differently.

But that first realization became a kind of bedrock that each new "I'm not crazy" realization could build on.

Because understanding my body's response began changing the shame I carried around the response—even before the response itself changed.

And then I began finding an approach to body-based tools that actually helped to also change my trauma responses.

Slowly, my experience of "I feel crazy" changed again.

Now, the crazy and trauma based reaction moments still come….

But I can see them.

I don't feel as stuck inside them.

I know I will come through it.

I trust myself.

I trust my support system.

I trust my approach to the tools and how I use them.

And I give myself lots of healing grace along the way. And at times I need my support people to help me find that when I can't access it in the moment.

I have found that there are many different "I'm not crazy" moments along my own healing journey and my clients healing journeys.

Some are:

The moment we finally understand why.

The moment we realize our body has been responding to something even when our mind didn't understand it.

The moment we understand what's happening but still can't change it.

The moment we find something that actually helps.

The moment that thing we found doesn't work and we reach for something else.

The moment we see something others have been trying to hide, and we knew was there, but couldn’t name it and now we can.

The moment a trauma response comes and we can say:

I know what this is.
I know why my body might be doing this.
I don't have to shame myself for it.
And I trust myself to find my way through.

I didn’t name all of the moments….(I’m sure you have one that I am not naming here that is true for you)...

And I’m sure we will continue to find more, “I’m not crazy”, the more we heal.

And just a reminder…..sometimes healing means a response disappears or lessons and sometimes it doesn’t disappear because we need its wisdom.

Healing continues when the shame around the response moves through and our body gets to show us what it wants us to know next about why “I’m not crazy” is true now, too.

Maybe your next “I’m not crazy” moment is realizing you don’t have to figure all of this out by yourself.

I have 3 spots open in my Basic Foundation program right now.

If your mind understands a lot about your trauma but your body still seems to take over in the moments that matter, this is exactly the gap we work with together.

You can schedule a free 30-minute call with me to tell me a little about what’s happening for you, learn more about Basic Foundation, and see if working together feels like the right next step.

Remember, ❤️

You Matter. Your Healing Matters. You Are Worth It!

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