Healing the Storm Within: Regulating My Nervous System After Abusive Relationships
For anyone who has endured years in an abusive relationship, you know how the body and mind often carry wounds that linger long after the relationship ends. One of the most affected—but often misunderstood—systems is the nervous system. It’s the control center for our emotions, reactions, and sense of safety in the world. When you’ve been exposed to prolonged trauma, your nervous system learns to operate in survival mode: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
I didn’t fully realize I was in an abusive relationship—let alone understand how hard my nervous system was fighting to protect me. It wasn’t until I was hospitalized after a mental breakdown, and only released once my partner had returned to his home country, that the weight of it all began to sink in.
When I speak about the bipolar diagnosis, I often connect it to the profound grief of losing my triplets—three beautiful babies I gave birth to, but never got to hold in life.
What I rarely talk about is the relationship with their father. The emotional abuse. The manipulation. The sexual abuse. How I was made to believe that a woman exists to meet a man’s needs—no matter the cost.
Even in the rawest moment of my life, just hours after delivering my stillborn children, I was expected to prioritize his desires over my own pain, my own body, my own heartbreak.
That trauma runs deep. And it took me a long time to even name it, let alone begin to heal from it.
My parents and friends were concerned, but they respected my choices, even when they didn’t fully understand. And truthfully, neither did I. I couldn’t see the abuse for what it was—or the toll it was taking on me.
Even years after leaving, I was still carrying the trauma. Still living in the shadows of the mental and sexual abuse I had endured.
For a long time, my body continued to live in the same freeze state—and I didn’t even know it. I wasn’t just “numb” or “tired” or “overwhelmed.” I was trapped in a survival response that had been wired into my nervous system by years of abuse. My body didn’t feel like mine. I wasn’t fully here, but I wasn’t gone either.
Just… suspended. Frozen.
I would shut down in conflict or confrontation—not because I didn’t care, but because my system had learned it wasn’t safe to speak. It wasn’t safe to move, to react, to feel. So I froze. My thoughts slowed, my limbs felt heavy, and my emotions got locked behind a thick, invisible wall. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t run. So I stayed still.
I lived in a quiet panic—one that didn’t look like anxiety on the outside, but felt like suffocation on the inside. And for so long, I thought I was the problem. That maybe I was detached or broken.
But now I know:
My nervous system was doing its job.
It was trying to protect me.
Because back then, stillness felt safer than fight or flight. Freezing was my survival.
And now? I’m learning to thaw.
Gently. Slowly. Without shame.
Every breath, every tear, every flicker of emotion I allow myself to feel is proof that I’m coming back to life—one moment at a time.
Journey back to myself
But here’s the powerful truth—healing is possible. It’s not linear, and it doesn’t happen overnight, but with intention and compassion, you can learn to regulate your nervous system and reclaim your sense of peace and safety.
Even years after the end of my first two abusive relationships, after therapy, something in me—small and buried—kept whispering:
There’s more than this. There is more to life.
You are more than this.
That voice is what brought me to Bali the first time, 7 years ago.
I didn’t go there to find myself—I went to find adventure, to celebrate my 40th birthday. I needed to be somewhere unfamiliar, somewhere far from the memories and the pain, to remember what it felt like to be me again.
And Bali held me.
There was something about the island—the slowness, the sacredness, the way everything is infused with intention. The offerings placed carefully on doorsteps. The way the wind moved through the rice fields. The warm, honest smiles from strangers. The sound of the ocean at night.
In Bali, I started to thaw.
I cycled in the rice fields, I trekked Mt Batur to enjoy a morning sunrise, I snorkelled. I enjoyed the Balinese peoples, food and culture. And in those moments, something shifted. Not all at once. Not in a dramatic way. But in a quiet, undeniable unfolding.
I began to come home to myself.
Healing didn’t happen in one single trip, or a single sunrise. But Bali was the place where I stopped surviving and started listening—to my body, my heart, my spirit. I started living!
It reminded me that I am not broken.
That I am still here.
That there is a version of me—soft, strong, whole—waiting patiently beneath the pain.
And now, as I close my eyes and feel the breeze or smell the incense or hear the waves, I remember:
I am allowed to be free.
I am allowed to feel safe.
I am allowed to return to myself.
This Is Not the End of My Story
Healing your nervous system after abuse isn’t about being “calm all the time.” It’s about building a foundation where your body feels safe enough to rest, express, and exist freely. It’s a daily act of courage to choose healing after heartbreak, chaos, and fear.
So if your hands still tremble, if your chest still tightens when healing yelling, if your thoughts still race—take a breath.
You’re not failing. You’re healing.
And that’s the most beautiful, powerful work you will ever do.
Be brave, be courageous and choose yourself and your peace!
Namaste 🙏
In Love and Light 💕🦋
Nat