Your Trauma Isn’t a Detour. It’s the Doorway.

I was seventeen, walking alone on a beautiful spring morning in Berkeley on my way to a haircut, when it happened.

A man followed me. His footsteps sped up behind mine. Before I could speak, his breath was on my face. His hands were on my body. And I froze.

I tried to yell. I tried to move. But I couldn’t breathe.
He said something — I still don’t remember the exact words.
And then I said the one word I could find:
“Don’t.”
Then louder: “Don’t.”

We both bolted — him back toward the garbage truck, and me toward the busy avenue.

It could’ve been seconds.
It felt like forever.

That was the day I stopped walking without looking over my shoulder.
That was the day I stopped feeling safe in my own body.

Naming It Took Years

Like many survivors, I didn’t call it trauma.
I told myself: At least it wasn’t worse. At least I wasn’t raped.
I minimized it.
I blamed myself. And I didn’t tell a soul.

But trauma isn’t about what happens on the outside.
It’s about what happens inside when no one is there to witness your pain.

The Day Healing Started

Years later — in a therapist’s office I hadn’t meant to walk into alone — I shared the story again.
I tried to minimize it, again.
And she stopped me.

She said, “Please, Susan, can you just spend a few minutes feeling the pain of what happened?”

And I did.
For the first time, I felt it.
And something began to shift.

That was the beginning of healing.

This Is What Real Self-Care Looks Like

This isn’t the self-care of bubble baths or meditation apps.
This is the kind of self-care that says:
You deserve to stop running.
You deserve to name what happened.
You deserve to feel whole again.

It took me years to name my experience as trauma.
It took even longer to let it transform me.

But if you’re holding something in silence, let this be your sign:
You don’t have to wait as long as I did.

📘 This story is from Chapter 1: Transforming Your Trauma
in Prioritize Your Self-Care: Reclaiming Your Path to an Extraordinary Life.

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