Once upon a time, I was a deeply unhappy person. Only – I didn’t know I was…
There were times I was feeling constant anxiety which filled up my life with a sharp smell of toxic fog. I was uptight, holding on to control with a death grip, pushing myself with such rigor that it was painful. This was only interrupted by occasional numbness, which then felt like a break.
Then, I did not know that both anxiety (a flight response) and numbness (a shut down response) were signs of a dysregulated nervous system.
Having lived with dysregulation off and on for a big portion of my life, I did not even know how unhappy I was, because it was quite normal for me.
On paper, I appeared to live a model life.
Moving along the tracks of life, I racked-up all the things that “should” have made me happy: an excellent education where I graduated with honors and a perfect GPA, a husband, and professional success; I had a brand new house, then a bigger brand new house, and I had nice things. The definition of success, right?