Clogged & Foggy Thoughts - Trauma

My brain is full. It’s clogged. I haven’t been sure why, but it has been clogged and is currently a struggle to write. This explains my lack of posts, but that’s also just life. It happens, no apologies, right?

Currently, I write and get distracted. I write and thoughts don’t make sense. I’ve started four separate blog posts that just are not coming together.

What is it that I can’t see? What is happening? Is it because of the trauma? Is this because of my current trauma therapy?

I have been doing my trauma timeline in therapy, where I map out my life. The idea is that after I map it out, we can tackle the different traumatic moments, then release them. Release the false thoughts that have stemmed from them. Release the emotional baggage that weighs me down.

However, I’m not at the “release” part yet. I just finished writing the timeline over many many sessions. Simply just bringing life’s hardest moments to the surface, which I think is just clogging my mind. Making thoughts and emotions feel foggy.

I mean I know trauma has stolen moments in my life. When looking at the timeline there was always something huge going on, taking me away from the present.

Hard to be in the present when the present is traumatic. And here I am again facing that trauma. BUT this time is different because I am facing it in a healthy way in order to release it. Nonetheless some of the symptoms are still the same because it’s feeling the trauma again.

Even as I write now, I shake my legs. Anxiety feels like it is taking over. There is something that just sits so uneasy with the trauma timeline.

It’s like having a ghost in your closet, but you can’t see it or name it. You are just waiting for it to scare you. It’s an unknown fear lurking in the shadows. It makes you anxious and afraid, but you can’t comprehend or put words to what is causing that fear because you don’t know what it is.

I haven’t known what has been clogging my mind, but that is my current most logical guess. Because since I can’t put words to it, it must be something I’m struggling to remember or afraid to feel. The past trauma is both of those. I don’t remember all the events; your brain shuts them down for a reason.

Then it seems obvious why I am afraid, we fear what we don’t know. It’s like this huge thing I know I need to face and release for a better future, but it seems big, overwhelming, and unknown.

It’s been the cause of an increase in poor habits, like impulse shopping. When I was unhappy in life, I shopped. I shop. It brings instant joy, but it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism.

Same with avoidance and silence. I avoid talking about things or calling people because it feels like I have this huge thing going on, but I can’t put it in words so it’s easier to just not talk to people.

It’s easier to not write because I don’t know what to say. I’ve struggled to describe it or talk about it because I don’t have a solution. I don’t have clear thoughts on what is going on.

But here I am writing what it feels like, because I can’t be the only one who feels this. Because writing is a positive coping mechanism that I have. And when I'm confused I turn to it and accept that awareness without solutions is part of the process too. Awareness with grace.

So, I’m writing with little advice, just honesty.

Honesty saying trauma has my mind clogged.

Honesty saying I’m working on it in therapy.

Honesty saying it’s okay to not always have the answers; it’s okay to just feel and let it be.

Embracing "it just is" and giving grace for "I'm doing what I can."