I’m honestly afraid of stillness and peace. Now that I’m getting accustomed to safety and not living in survival mode, I’ve met a new challenge. I’m so used to intensity and crisis that the quiet stillness of everyday life is unbearable sometimes. I feel like I need that stimulation to feel alive, and sometimes I unconsciously create crises because peace feels like death. When it’s quiet, all the memories, flashbacks, racing thoughts and ghost voices come rushing back. I feel like I’m on the edge of a dark abyss that threatens to swallow me. Like I might lose control, lose my mind if I succumb to the silence. So I’m starting to take micro actions to start slowly getting accustomed to stillness or boredom. I put a two minute timer on and just sit in silence. Not because it feels good. Not because I’m enlightened. Because my nervous system needs evidence that nothing terrible will happen if I stop running. I’m beginning to realize that peace isn’t the absence of life. It only feels empty because I spent so many years surviving. Chaos was familiar. Adrenaline was familiar. Hypervigilance was familiar. Stillness is a new language. Maybe healing isn’t learning how to fight harder. Maybe it’s learning how to sit quietly in a room that no longer contains danger and believing it.