Trauma Response: Hypervigilance, Somatic Flashbacks, Frozen Terror
Even after he’s gone, he’s not gone.
She lies awake, frozen. Listening for a sound that may not be real, but feels real. Because fear doesn’t need proof, it just needs memory.
This is post-traumatic hyperarousal at its most haunting. Her body remembers the night he pulled the trigger. Her body remembers the silence that followed. The darkness through the trees. The weight of not knowing what he’s capable of next.
And here’s the cruelest part: no one knows she still feels this way. Her husband doesn’t know. Her children don’t know. She carries the aftershocks of terror alone.
Because the fear never really left. It just learned to whisper instead of scream
These voices stay for so long afterward! I can see how his words shaped much of my life after I left… many of the bad decisions were to “prove” him wrong in some way.
Thanks for sharing your experience with this. I relate to that too. His words continued to shape both my inner and outer world for so long.
I also went through a stage I like to call my 'delayed teenage rebellion'! This was when I made decisions and took actions simply to try to prove him wrong, break his rules, or do all the things I knew he didn't like.
It is a long and difficult process to erase their voice from our minds, but it is so freeing when it slowly starts to fade and you begin to hear your own voice more and more 💛
My Fear That Lurks in the Night
Trauma Response: Hypervigilance, Somatic Flashbacks, Frozen Terror
Even after he’s gone, he’s not gone.
She lies awake, frozen. Listening for a sound that may not be real, but feels real. Because fear doesn’t need proof, it just needs memory.
This is post-traumatic hyperarousal at its most haunting. Her body remembers the night he pulled the trigger. Her body remembers the silence that followed. The darkness through the trees. The weight of not knowing what he’s capable of next.
And here’s the cruelest part: no one knows she still feels this way. Her husband doesn’t know. Her children don’t know. She carries the aftershocks of terror alone.
Because the fear never really left. It just learned to whisper instead of scream
These voices stay for so long afterward! I can see how his words shaped much of my life after I left… many of the bad decisions were to “prove” him wrong in some way.
Thanks for sharing your experience with this. I relate to that too. His words continued to shape both my inner and outer world for so long.
I also went through a stage I like to call my 'delayed teenage rebellion'! This was when I made decisions and took actions simply to try to prove him wrong, break his rules, or do all the things I knew he didn't like.
It is a long and difficult process to erase their voice from our minds, but it is so freeing when it slowly starts to fade and you begin to hear your own voice more and more 💛