The Breakdown Before the Breakthrough

By The Wounder Healer and Author of This Blog

Introduction: When Nothing Makes Sense Anymore

What happens when the tools you knew stop working, the people you once leaned on drift away, and even your own voice feels foreign? All hope feels hollow, and the things that once hurt feel louder. This isn’t a story about healing wrapped in a bow. Healing isn’t always linear. Sometimes it’s loud, chaotic, and full of mistakes. Sometimes it’s just surviving the day with whatever tools you have left.

This is a chapter from one of those seasons—the in-between space where old patterns collapse and little seems left.

I did not have a clean, empowering breakthrough. I didn’t. What I had was a long stretch of emotional chaos, isolation, regret, and exhaustion. This is me telling the truth about that time—and the small, unexpected ways I found a way forward.

Part One: When the Tools Stopped Working

In my darkest moments, nothing seemed to work anymore and the literal weight, I carried left me incapacitated, emotionally and physically.  I coped by chain-smoking cigarettes and numbing out with food, dissociation, and occasionally other means. 

Endlessly, my mind was in a constant state of spinning.  How do I fight this depression? Is there any way all this actually makes sense?  How do I get through today?  Will I ever be in a body again that doesn’t feel like a cage?  Why did I do this to myself?

I spiraled into deeper depression, suicidal ideation, and attempts, while everyone had their ideas of what I should do or who they thought I was.  

Indeed, there had been a bit lit of erratic behavior and rants.

I set fire to bridges—emotionally detonating long-standing connections with friends, family, and even the professional world I once aspired to belong to. I poured my heart out across lengthy Facebook posts, personal poetry, and expressions of dark humor.

Some viewed me as self-absorbed, stuck in trauma loops, manipulative, or gaslighting. I sat with those labels, questioning what truth might lie within them, even when they hurt. I grew increasingly paranoid about sharing my experiences in support groups where I no longer felt understood. The voices of far-away friends began to feel distant, disembodied—comforting, but no longer grounding.

Eventually, even the internet, once a refuge, failed to soothe me. No post, no comment, no validation could quiet the ache or offer real relief.

Talk therapy became just that—talk. It began to feel like all hope was slipping away.

What was the turning point?

Was there truly a magical moment where everything made sense?

The Real Answer

Not exactly. There was no sudden flash of clarity, no movie-scene breakthrough where everything clicked into place. It was a hundred gritty, uncomfortable, soul-wrenching moments. It was the aftermath of my own explosions—the silence after the rants, the ache of disconnection, the shame, the longing. It was the clarity that comes only after you’ve burned it all down and you’re left sitting in the ashes, wondering what’s worth rebuilding.

The turning point wasn’t loud—it was the quiet decision to stop pretending, to stop performing, and to start asking myself what I needed to survive the next day. And the one after that.

It meant making choices and walking paths that others didn’t understand.

It meant trying again—this direction, then that—only to watch it, or myself, fall apart all over again.

In the end, my healing didn’t arrive from any external force—no therapist, no program, no validation. It came from somewhere quieter. It rose slowly, almost imperceptibly, like a delicate blade of grass after a hard rain. And this time, I protected it. I didn’t share every moment or wait for someone to tell me I was worthy. I loved that fragile piece of myself quietly, fiercely. I watered her with the words she needed to hear. I accepted every crooked edge of my story—even the shadows—and chose to love her, fully, as no one else ever could.

A Note to the Reader

If you’re reading this in your own “in-between” space, I don’t have a five-step plan for you. I don’t have a miracle moment to share. But I do have this truth: You are not broken beyond repair. Even in your quietest collapse, something small, something brave, something entirely yours can still grow.

Protect it. Water it. And don’t let anyone—including your past self—convince you it’s not worth loving.

Purpose of this Site

This site is a blend of lived experience, creative reflection, and the quiet (and sometimes messy) process of healing. It’s not a step-by-step guide or a polished self-help platform—it’s something softer, more personal, and maybe more honest than that.

Here, I share thoughts on mental health, trauma, grief, and what it means to try to keep living when things feel broken or uncertain. You’ll also find art, poetry, and words that came from hard moments, tender moments, and everything in between.

While I am not offering professional therapy or coaching, I do speak from years of personal healing work—including my own experience in therapy and in the helping professions. I hope what I share can support you in your process, whether you are just beginning or rebuilding after a collapse.

You may find:

• Personal reflections on anxiety, trauma, healing setbacks, and soul-tiredness
• Tools and coping strategies that helped me (and might help you)
• Creative journaling prompts or writing exercises
• Expressive art: paintings, sketches, or symbolic pieces from my journey
• Poetry written through the lens of healing, loss, and survival
• Reflections on faith, spirituality, and reimagining connection

You are welcome here as you are. No pressure to be “okay,” no expectation to explain yourself. Just bring your real, unraveling, in-progress self. That’s what I bring too.