Finding My Rhythm: Healing, Leading, Becoming

For years, I lived inside a body that never truly rested.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course. Anxiety had become the background music of my life. Constant, low, relentless. Like the hum of a refrigerator you stop noticing until the power goes out.

Then one day, my ex walked out of the house.

And the power went out.

The anxiety vanished so suddenly it felt unnatural. The quiet inside me wasn’t peaceful at first. It was terrifying. I remember standing in the kitchen thinking, Something is wrong with me. Why don’t I feel normal? I kept waiting for the familiar surge of tension to return, the tightening in my chest, the instinct to brace myself. I felt like I should be looking over my shoulder, even though there was no one there.

For months, maybe years, I didn’t trust that calm. I treated it like a strange visitor who might turn on me at any moment. I didn’t know yet that what I was feeling wasn’t emptiness. It was safety.

Slowly, the changes crept into the smallest corners of my life.

I noticed it first in parking lots.
Before, if I couldn’t find a space quickly, panic would rise like a flash flood. My heart would race, my thoughts would spiral, and sometimes I would just leave, abandoning the event altogether. The stress of one small inconvenience tipped me over the edge because I was already living at the edge.

Now, I circle the lot. I breathe. I wait.
And somehow, that feels miraculous.

I began to realize that I hadn’t been overreacting to small things. I had been living in a state of constant emotional alert, and every extra stressor was simply one straw too many.

Even after the relationship ended, anxiety didn’t disappear overnight. It lingered like muscle memory. I carried it with me until I moved 300 miles away. And then, quietly, something else shifted. A deeper calm settled into me, one I hadn’t even known was possible.

That was when I understood something profound and heartbreaking.

I had learned the wrong definition of normal.

I thought anxiety was just how life felt. I thought the knot in my stomach was part of being responsible, attentive, prepared. Now I know that when I feel that sensation, my body isn’t being dramatic. It’s being wise. It’s telling me something isn’t right.

It is not normal to live waiting for the next explosion.
It is not normal to brace for anger.
It is not normal to anticipate criticism as if it were weather.

But for a long time, that was my climate.

I lived inside a fun house of mirrors, every reflection warped. One mirror told me I was too sensitive. Another said I wasn’t enough. Another insisted I was the problem. I kept turning, searching for the real version of myself, never realizing that emotional abuse had distorted the glass.

Now I am learning what undistorted feels like.

I am relearning how to interpret my emotions. I am learning that calm is not emptiness. Peace is not boredom. Safety is not weakness. And that feeling steady doesn’t mean I’ve lost my edge. It means I’ve found my ground.

This has not been a quick transformation. It has been slow, layered, sometimes lonely. But it has been real.

And the science tells me I’m not imagining any of this.

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What the research says about emotional abuse and recovery

Studies consistently show that emotional abuse can have long-term effects comparable to physical abuse, including:

• Chronic anxiety and hypervigilance
• Difficulty trusting one’s own perceptions
• Heightened stress response and dysregulated nervous system
• Increased risk of depression and PTSD

Research from the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the American Psychological Association shows that survivors often live in a state of sustained fight-or-flight, which rewires how the brain processes threat and safety.

The hopeful part is this.
Neuroscience also shows that the brain can heal.

With time, safety, supportive relationships, and often therapy, the nervous system can relearn regulation. Cortisol levels normalize. Emotional awareness returns. Survivors begin to distinguish between danger and memory.

And perhaps most beautifully, many report what I have felt.
A rediscovery of calm that doesn’t feel like emptiness anymore.
It feels like home.

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If you are reading this and recognize yourself in these words, know this.

You are not broken.
You are not weak.
You are not overreacting.

You are healing from something that trained your body to survive.

And survival, once it is no longer needed, can slowly become something else.

It can become peace.