Why improvement didn’t feel like safety yet

For a long time, improvement had always been followed by a crash.

My body had learned that calm was temporary.

I didn’t associate feeling better with stability — I associated it with risk.

This made sense after what I lived through in questioning whether good weeks were real healing.

Hope felt dangerous because it had disappointed me before.

How memory kept my nervous system on alert

Even without symptoms, my body stayed watchful.

I scanned for sensations, subtle shifts, signs of trouble.

This hypervigilance mirrored what I described in becoming afraid of my own symptoms.

My nervous system treated quiet as something to monitor.

Calm wasn’t a signal to relax yet.

Vigilance lingered because my body hadn’t learned consistency.

When past flares shaped future expectations

Each flare I’d experienced had left an imprint.

My body remembered how quickly things could change.

This fear connected closely with learning to distinguish setbacks from real relapses.

I expected the return before it happened.

That expectation kept me braced even on stable days.

Anticipation was a leftover survival skill.

What helped me stop waiting for the other shoe to drop

I didn’t force myself to trust the calm.

I let it repeat.

This shift became possible only after understanding how long my nervous system stayed activated.

Safety had to prove itself through consistency.

Over time, calm stopped feeling like a setup.

Trust grew when stability stopped disappearing.

FAQ: the fear underneath the waiting

Why do I keep expecting symptoms to return?
Because my body learned that symptoms once came without warning.

Does this mean I’m not healing?
No — for me, this fear showed up alongside real progress.