A Conversation “You’re not what happened to you..
A conversation about the freeze response, survival, self-blame, and learning to forgive ourselves.
You’re not what happened to you.
You get to rewrite the story.
We hear so much about fight or flight.
Run.
Defend yourself.
Protect yourself.
Survive.
But there’s another “F” that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough:
Freeze.
And if you’re anything like me, you might have spent years wondering why you couldn’t move.
Why you stayed when you wanted to leave.
Why you went quiet when you had so much to say.
Why making the smallest decision could feel impossible.
Why you could function on the outside while feeling completely disconnected on the inside.
I spent major phases of my life in freeze.
And I didn’t know it.
I thought something was wrong with me.
I thought I wasn’t strong enough.
I thought I should have known better.
I thought I should have done better for myself.
But this wasn’t because we weren’t strong.
We didn’t freeze because we didn’t know how to be strong.
Sometimes survival becomes so deeply etched into us that we forget there is an escape route.
Sometimes going numb is the only way we knew how to keep going.
And I don’t want to talk about that with shame.
I want us to talk about it with compassion.
Because I know I still blame myself sometimes.
I look back and wonder why I stayed stuck.
Why I stayed frozen in a place where I deserved so much more.
Why I couldn’t protect myself.
Why I let my inner child down.
As if freezing when everything became too much was somehow my fault.
I’m still learning that it wasn’t.
And maybe you are, too.
So this isn’t me standing on the other side of healing, telling you how to fix yourself.
I’m just taking a seat beside you.
I’m asking for your hand.
Let’s look in the mirror together.
Not to criticize the woman looking back at us.
Not to shame her for what she didn’t know.
Not to ask her why she didn’t leave sooner, speak louder, fight harder, or choose differently.
But to finally see her.
To name what happened.
To look at her reflection, nod our heads in respect, and say:
“You did the best you could with what you had.”
Because maybe that’s where healing begins.
Not with shame.
But with recognition.
With compassion.
With finally understanding that the woman who froze was not failing you.
She was trying to keep you alive.
She was trying to survive, the best way she knew how.
And then, slowly…
we learn that survival isn’t the only way we get to live.
We learn that there is an escape route.
We learn that we can move again.
We learn that the story doesn’t have to stay the same.
I’m still figuring this out.
I still have moments where I catch myself blaming the woman I used to be.
But I’m a little wiser now, I guess.
And I’m learning to forgive us.
So if you’ve spent years frozen too…
Sit down with me here. Take my hand.
Let’s look in the mirror.
Let’s name it.
Let’s stop blaming ourselves.
And let’s begin again.
Because you are not what happened to you.
You get to rewrite the story 🤍
And maybe this is where ours begins…
Author’s Note..
For those of you who have come across me as Temperance, you probably already know this:
I don’t write to preach.
I write to name the emotions I wish I had words for when I was trying to make sense of myself.
Sometimes, I write because there’s a feeling sitting somewhere inside me that I can’t quite explain.
And then, somehow, a sentence finds it.
And I think, ‘Oh’
So that’s what it was’..
Maybe you know that feeling too.
So… welcome to my little corner of the internet.
One I’m quietly, ridiculously proud of having finally found the courage to build.
I’ve spent a long time keeping certain parts of myself tucked away. And I think I’m finally ready to stop doing that.
Not because I have everything figured out.
I really don’t.
But because I’m learning that maybe we don’t need to have it all figured out before we’re allowed to be seen.
So if something you read here feels a little too familiar…
If a sentence sounds like something you’ve been trying to find the words for…
If you find yourself pausing somewhere between the lines because damn, I’ve felt that too..
then maybe you found your way to the right little corner.
Because there are so many more conversations I want to have here.
About the things we carry quietly.
The things we don’t know how to name.
The parts of ourselves we abandoned while trying to survive.
The messy, complicated, beautiful business of becoming ourselves again.
I want this to be that table.
The one you can bring your messy, complicated, deeply human self to.
No performing.
No pretending.
No needing to have the right words.
No requirement to be okay before you sit down.
Just conversations.
Honest ones.
Sometimes uncomfortable ones.
Sometimes healing ones.
And sometimes, maybe, conversations where we simply sit there with our warm drink and say,
“Yeah. Me too.”
It doesn’t always have to be profound.
It doesn’t always have to be perfectly worded.
Maybe sometimes healing is just showing up.
So pour yourself something warm.
Take your time.
There’s always a seat waiting for you here.
And if you’d like to have more of these honest conversations…
Pull up a chair. Subscribe and stay a little while longer..
I’m glad you’re here.
— Temperance 💙…