After psychological abuse, people expect you to “move on.”But what happens when your mind won’t let you?What happens when the person who was supposed to help you heal is the one who caused the damage?

In this episode, I talk about what actually happened to me after I broke away from a therapist who manipulated and extorted me.Not just the facts — the symptoms. The fallout. The reality I had to put back together.

I talk about:

* The confusion of not knowing what was true and what was a lie

* The racing thoughts, night terrors, and nervous system dysregulation

* The guilt of caring about someone who was actively hurting me

* How shame lives in the body, and how it can make you feel physically sick

* The way trauma makes time fold in on itself — how months of recovery can still feel like you’re trapped in the same moment

I also talk about the pressure to prove it.How painful it is to feel like you have to convince people what happened — like surviving wasn’t enough.Like the burden is on you to explain, justify, retell the worst moments of your life just to be taken seriously.

This wasn’t a clean break.It was a long, drawn-out process of slowly reclaiming my nervous system, my clarity, my sleep, my self-worth.And I’m still rebuilding.

But I’m not where I was.And if you’re in it — if you’re clawing your way back from something you never thought you’d have to survive — just know this:

You’re not alone.You’re not broken.And you don’t have to justify the damage to anyone.

You can recover from this.

Whatever “this” may be.

Keep going.

— Cody TaymoreKill The Silence

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