Detox and Recovery

It wasn’t that I became less resilient — it was that small things felt overwhelming inside my home in a way they never did elsewhere. That contrast quietly revealed how much my environment was shaping my nervous system.

Sleep was supposed to reset me — but each morning felt heavier than the last. What I eventually noticed wasn’t a failure to rest, but a pattern my body was quietly repeating.

It wasn’t an immediate reaction. It was a slow buildup that crept in the longer I stayed home, until my body felt heavier, foggier, and harder to steady.

Nothing dramatic changed after sunset — and yet my body unraveled more as the evening went on. The pattern wasn’t random, and it wasn’t in my head.

I didn’t feel sick everywhere in my home — just in specific spaces. Once I stopped dismissing that detail, a quiet but consistent pattern began to emerge.

I didn’t feel emotionally unsafe at home — but my body never fully settled there. The contrast between indoors and outdoors became one of the clearest signals I had that something environmental was shaping my symptoms.

Even as things stabilized, part of me kept scanning for signs of regression. I thought that meant I didn’t trust my progress. What I didn’t realize was that my nervous system was still learning what safety felt like.

I expected progress to move forward and stay there. When good days were followed by harder ones, I assumed I was slipping backward. It took time to understand that uneven healing wasn’t failure — it was how my nervous system actually recalibrated.

When stability returned, I expected gratitude to replace everything else. Instead, grief surfaced — quiet, confusing, and unexpected. It took time to understand that grieving what we lost didn’t mean I preferred how things were before.

Things improved. Life resumed. But I didn’t feel finished. I kept waiting for closure — not realizing that healing wasn’t something I would complete, but something I would slowly integrate.