The first thing I noticed was my breath or rather, the absence of it. I came back into myself gasping, lungs aching as though I had been underwater far longer than I realized. Fear followed immediately, sharp and disorienting, because with breath came awareness, and with awareness came feeling. I did not know how long I had been gone—weeks, perhaps months. But time had slipped past without my consent, and returning to it felt like being thrust into the middle of a storm without warning.

This was the cycle I came to know too well. Numbness would settle in quietly, mercifully muting the weight of grief, fear, and exhaustion when my mind could no longer carry them. And then, without warning, sensation would return all at once, sound too loud, emotions too sharp, reality too close. Panic would rise as I tried to orient myself, only for my mind to retreat again, pulling the veil back over my senses like a protective reflex. It felt cruel, repetitive, almost mocking, like waking up only to be pushed back into sleep, again and again, trapped in a loop I could not control.

For a long time, I believed this meant I was failing. Failing at healing. Failing at faith. Failing to trust God enough to stay present. But the truth, slowly revealed, was gentler than that. My mind was not betraying me—it was protecting me. My body was stepping in when my soul was overwhelmed, sheltering me from a weight I could not yet bear. Scripture gave language to what I could not explain: “He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:14) God was not surprised by my limits. He had accounted for them all along.

Still, protection can become a prison if we do not learn how to return. And what I discovered, slowly, imperfectly was that healing did not begin with forcing myself to feel again. It began with creating safety for when feeling returned. Structure became mercy. Routine became an anchor. Simple daily schedules—waking, eating, praying, grounding—gave my nervous system something steady to hold onto when the ground beneath me felt unstable. I was not trying to control my mind; I was learning how to stay.

Prayer, too, changed during this season. It was no longer eloquent or long. Sometimes it was nothing more than, “Lord, I am here. Please stay.” And He did. In the moments when fear rushed back faster than breath, when emotions surged without warning. I learned slowly, to remain present instead of fleeing. To let the feelings rise and fall without interpreting them as danger. To trust that stillness did not mean abandonment. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted,” the Psalmist writes, and I learned that closeness does not require constant awareness to be real.

Healing, I came to understand, is not the absence of dissociation. It is the shortening of the distance between leaving and returning. It is learning what helps you stay when your soul wants to retreat. It is forgiving yourself when you disappear, and welcoming yourself gently when you come back. Healing is not linear, and it is rarely quiet, but it is faithful. God meets us not only in our awareness, but also in the blank spaces we cannot remember.

If you are afraid to feel again, if the thought of sensation returning fills you with dread, know this, you are not broken. Your body has been trying to keep you alive. And the same God who held you in the numbness will hold you in the awakening. You do not have to carry everything alone. You were never meant to.

A Prayer

Lord,

For the ones who are afraid to feel again, for those who wake gasping, unsure where they have been, be near.

Teach us how to stay. Give us rhythms that ground us, breath that steadies us, and grace for the days we disappear.

When feeling returns too loudly, quiet our fear with Your presence. And remind us gently, faithfully that even here, we are safe.

In Jesus Name, Amen.

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