Nobody Talks About The After

The Feral Truth: Surviving the crisis is one thing. Learning how to live afterward is a completely different skill. 🦝💗☕

Everybody talks about the crisis.

Nobody talks about what happens after.

The emergency.

The diagnosis.

The surgery.

The treatment.

The hospital stay.

The bad scan.

The good scan.

The giant terrifying thing.

People understand those parts.

What they don't understand is what comes next.

The aftermath.

The weird space where the immediate danger has passed, but your nervous system hasn't received the memo.

You finally get good news.

Or stable news.

Or less terrible news.

And everyone expects relief.

But instead, you feel exhausted.

Emotionally.

Physically.

Spiritually.

Like your brain has been sprinting for months and suddenly somebody removed the finish line.

For years, I thought something was wrong with me.

Why wasn't I relaxing?

Why wasn't I celebrating?

Why couldn't I just enjoy the fact that the crisis was over?

Then I realized something.

My body wasn't reacting to the moment.

It was reacting to the accumulation.

The appointments.

The fear.

The uncertainty.

The months spent waiting for the next thing.

You don't walk away from that untouched.

Even when things improve.

Even when life calms down.

Part of you remains on high alert.

Watching.

Listening.

Preparing.

Because experience has taught you how quickly circumstances can change.

The funny thing is that caregivers become incredibly good at surviving emergencies.

We can function on no sleep.

Operate under pressure.

Solve impossible problems.

But give us a peaceful afternoon?

Now we're suspicious.

What's the catch?

Who forgot to tell me something?

Why is nobody calling?

Should somebody be calling?

I've spent years learning how to survive chaos.

I'm still learning how to trust calm.

Maybe that's normal.

Maybe healing isn't returning to who you were before.

Maybe it's learning how to carry what happened without letting it carry you.

I don't know.

I'm still figuring that part out.

What I do know is this:

The version of me that existed before all of this is gone.

Not broken.

Not ruined.

Just changed.

And honestly?

She'd probably be pretty impressed with how far we've come.

Yours in chaos,

~Kari, The Feral Caregiver