Bella Imperia: The things I don’t say

The slam of a door makes my body jolt before my mind can catch up. A drawer closing too hard sends a sharp skip through my chest. Even something as simple as a raised hand in farewell can pull a flinch from me before I recognize it for what it is. Small sounds. Ordinary gestures. Harmless moments. Yet my body does not always know the difference.

I hate this.

I thought I was beyond it. I thought I had done enough healing, enough rebuilding, enough distance placed between who I was then and who I am now. I believed I had buried those reflexes somewhere far behind me, left them with the version of myself that had to survive by staying alert, by reading every sound as warning, every movement as danger.

But trauma does not always leave in a straight line. Sometimes it lingers quietly in the nervous system, sleeping beneath the surface until something ordinary wakes it. Then suddenly fight or flight rushes forward like it never left at all. My pulse quickens. My breathing changes. My mind searches for exits before I have even formed a thought.

And flight is chosen.

Not because I am weak. Not because I want to run. But because somewhere deep inside me, there is still a part that remembers when leaving was safer than staying. A part that learned escape before it learned peace.

I hate this version of me that resurfaces uninvited. I hate how quickly she appears, how easily she can be summoned by a noise, a gesture, a tone. I have worked so hard to not be her anymore. I have spent years trying to become someone softer, steadier, less afraid.

But maybe healing is not becoming someone else. Maybe it is learning to love the parts of me that were forged in survival, even when they embarrass me, even when they exhaust me. Maybe the woman who flinches is not a failure. Maybe she is simply someone who endured too much and is still learning that the war is over.

I hate this. I do.

But perhaps I do not hate me. Not really. I think I am grieving how long survival lingers after the danger is gone.

For today, she is here. The guarded one, the trembling one, the one who still listens for storms. But hopefully tomorrow she will quiet. She will loosen her grip, step back into the shadows, and I will be myself again.

-Bella Imperia