I can’t breathe. All life in me is gone. My heart feels nothing. Not joy or sadness or hurt. My body is numb. It can’t even feel pain. I’m completely shut down. I can’t react. I can’t fight. I can’t cry. How can I feel my heart beat again? I can’t breathe…

I look in the mirror and gasp at the stranger staring back at me. Who is she? Confusion and fear fills my soul. I don’t know what’s happening. I want to smash the mirror into millions of pieces so she disappears. Forever. I’m broken. I’m shattered. I’m not ok. How can I be ok? I can’t breathe…

I can’t breathe. Please, give me a place to run to, to escape from this place I’m in. This prison. This cage. This asylum. Everything is dark. Everything feels cold. I don’t know where I am. I am so lost and afraid. How can I find a way out of this place? I can’t breathe…

My head is filled with evil. Paintings of trauma. Pictures of death. Images of the unthinkable. My eyes stare at each in shock. My voice is stolen. No words can describe the carnage that sits inside of me. I can’t move. It’s impossible to think logically anymore. How will I ever regain consciousness? I just can’t breathe…

I can’t breathe. The weight, the heaviness, it sits on me…the heaps and piles of terror. I’m suffocating. I can’t catch my breath. There is no air left in my lungs. They have won. I have no control. I’m too weak to get back up. I can no longer breathe…

16 thoughts on “Breathless…”

  1. My heart is with you. This terrible feeling of not being able to breathe I know it so so well…. no words can really comfort you were you are but to see into the heart of darkness is necessary for us to come through, this is all I can say. I cant breathe for you but I do feel for you. Hugs and love ❤

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  2. I’m here, I’m reading, I know all feels black and dead and I know the feeling of wanting out but not seeing any doors and feeling trapped.
    Could you email your therapist? Would that be helpful? Or maybe go for a walk so you can take some small breaths being in nature/out in the open?
    I don’t know how you feel about water but showers or taken a bath?
    Focusing on your children and just shove everything aside until your ready to look at it again (I don’t know if your able to do that so please don’t feel like a failure if you can’t, sometimes the trauma is just to overwhelming)
    Maybe you could draw the pictures so they can be heard and seen ( I know how hard that is but sometimes it helped to breath again after drawing)
    Maybe you could sit with the feelings and thoughts and write everything out?
    I hope there is something in the above that, even if it’s just for a moment, gives you some room to breath.
    Kate

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  5. Smashing the mirror, or the reflection of the girl in it. I can say I have done both. It felt like I had no emotions for so long that I began to wonder if I was dead. Crazy I know to wonder such a thing. I was looking in the mirror in such a detached way I could barely recognize myself. Dissociated states, anxiety states, depressive states, sometimes I’d drive through different states MA, NH, ME, VT to try and shake it off. Sometimes I still do. As I was to learn, “it’s okay not to okay.” To learn to tolerate the intolerable became my goal. I’m still learning. Namaste~ ❤️

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    1. It is something I have been experiencing for many months now. I don’t know how to resolve it. I just continue to spiral as I sift through the images in my head. It is very overwhelming at times. I’ve basically cope by going numb. It’s all I know how to do right now.

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      1. I stop breathing when something is painful or scary, or sometimes just because. My husband reminds me to breathe and I generally don’t even know I’m not. It is strange. But I can’t imagine it as a general thing. You are in my prayers!

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      2. I understand what you are describing here as well…this happens to me sometimes too, mostly in a panic situation where I freeze in fear. I think what I write about here is more of an intense feeling of overwhelm that just feels so heavy and suffocating…hence feeling like “I can’t breathe.” I’m so sorry for your experiences, it must be very frightening sometimes. I’m thankful you have your husband to help and support you.

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