At 62, I can tell you that my breakdown was the greatest gift of my life. I know how that sounds. At 55, lying awake shaking at 3am, I would not have believed it either.
Going Straight Through the Darkness
Dante wrote that the journey to the other side of darkness begins by going straight through it. At the time I would not have called my breakdown a journey. I would have called it the worst thing that ever happened to me. Now I know it was both. And I know it was necessary.
It began quietly in my art studio in May 2019. A tearing eye I ignored. Pain behind my ear I brushed aside. By evening the left side of my face had gone numb. What followed over the next seven months was my body’s complete refusal to be ignored. Unrelenting insomnia. Constant shaking. Maddening tinnitus. Thirty pounds gone. Every medical test came back normal. Which somehow made it worse.
Naming the Issue
In January 2020 I entered a residential trauma treatment facility and was diagnosed with PTSD. I am naming that directly because too many women carry something like it without a name, and the not naming makes it heavier.
What the breakdown gave me was this. The truth. Years of performing wellness while quietly disappearing inside. Looking completely fine on the outside while something essential was going dark within. My body was never broken. It was finally being honest with me in the only way I had left it.
Sound Familiar?
By the time we reach our late 50s and 60s we have absorbed so much. Careers. Children. Marriages. Loss. We became experts at pushing through. But the body keeps a record of everything the mind tries to move past. And, at some point, it stops asking politely.
That persistent fatigue that sleep does not fix. The tension so familiar it feels normal. The low hum of unease you cannot quite name. These are not simply signs of aging. They are your body offering you the same gift mine offered me. The truth about what you need.
Three ways to begin untangling it:
Get Curious Instead of Dismissive
When something feels off, notice it without judgment. You do not need answers right away. Just stop overriding yourself.
Create Small Moments of Pause
Three slow breaths. A hand on your heart. A moment outside before responding to something difficult. The nervous system responds to small quiet signals of safety.
Let Stillness Be Medicine
For a body that has been running on high alert for decades, stillness is not laziness. It is where the gift begins to reveal itself.
Dante eventually found his way through. So did I. And what waited on the other side was something I could not have found any other way. Myself.
Your body has been patient. It will keep speaking until you are ready to listen. And when you are, that is where everything begins to change.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What if the signal your body has been sending you is not a warning but a gift? What truth might it be trying to offer you right now?
