The Feral Truth About Always Waiting for the Next Crisis

The Feral Truth:

You’re never fully relaxed anymore.

Even when things are “fine.”

Especially when things are “fine.”

Because “fine” doesn’t feel safe…it feels suspicious.

Like you’re just in between disasters.

You’ll be sitting there—nothing actively wrong, no emergency, no phone calls—

…and your brain goes:

Okay but what’s next?

Because there’s always a next.

There’s always:

• another appointment

• another scan

• another symptom

• another thing that comes out of nowhere and knocks the wind out of you

  
  

So you stop trusting calm.

You stop settling into good days.

You don’t exhale all the way anymore.

It’s like your body learned that peace is temporary…and now it won’t let you forget it.

And the worst part?

No one sees this version of it.

They see you when you’re handling things.

When you’re managing the crisis.

When you’re “so strong.”

They don’t see you:

• bracing for impact in the quiet

• checking your phone for no reason

• running through worst-case scenarios while folding laundry

  
  

They don’t see how exhausting it is to live like this—half in the present, half in the next potential emergency.

Always on edge.

Always waiting.

And yeah… sometimes you hate that feeling.

Because it steals the moments that are actually okay.

But also?

That hyper-awareness… that constant low-level panic…

It didn’t come out of nowhere.

It came from experience.

From being blindsided.

From hearing bad news.

From watching things change in an instant.

Your brain isn’t broken.

It’s trying to protect you.

It just doesn’t know how to turn it off.

So now you live in this weird space where:

nothing is wrong

but nothing feels safe

And you don’t really talk about it…

Because how do you even explain

that the quiet makes you anxious now?

That peace feels like a setup?

That you’re just… waiting?

That’s the Feral Truth.

Yours in chaos,

~Kari, The Feral Caregiver