Waking Up with Anxiety and Trauma: The Quiet Horror We Still Don’t Talk About

Waking up with anxiety and trauma triggers is what my mornings feel like.
Sharp. Sudden. Heavy.

Anxiety doesn’t knock — it hits.

I sometimes write about it like it’s all messy poetry — crawling encounters and cinematic spirals. But the truth? It’s a sucker punch.
Each day begins with a hard blow of dread.
A dread strong enough to rattle even the most stoic person.
Its effects? Still unraveling.

The Long War: Waking Up with Anxiety and Trauma for Forty Years

For close to four decades, I tried.
Tried to breathe through it.
To walk through it.
To sleep through it.

Eventually, surviving without help wasn’t an option. I had to do both — the talking, and the scary thing called psychiatric support.

Some people mocked. Others still do.
Often, the ones closest to you are the ones quickest to judge.
Because they don’t carry crosses, and they’ll never understand yours.

The backtalk? It’s consistent.

Some slip it into casual arguments. Others project their own fears.
There’s a type that says nothing — the “ignore it and maybe it’ll go away” tribe.
One group stays vocally supportive, another helps silently, and some are simply too afraid to speak.

This Blog Is My Space — And I’m Unapologetic About It

I’m not afraid of hypocrites or whispers anymore.
This blog — my diarrhoea of thoughts, as some might call it — is my space.
It’s my safe space. (Yes, I know that phrase gets thrown around. I still mean it.)

Maybe someday it’ll help someone out there — to feel less alone, to seek help, to stop apologizing for needing it.

If you’re navigating similar mornings, this breakdown of CPTSD symptoms by Verywell Mind might help.

The Monsters We Entertain in Silence

The headlines are everywhere.
They always have been.

The Epstein case?
Open, shut, dissected, Netflix-documented.
And yet, I’ve tried not to read too much.

Not because I don’t care.
But because I can’t — not every single day.

This isn’t just about the U.S. or one island.

It’s about here.
Us.
>Our homes. Our offices. Our classrooms.
Sometimes, even our goddamn bedrooms.

Because here’s the bitter truth:
There’s an Epstein near all of us.
>Sometimes dead. Sometimes alive.

Sometimes laughing at your dinner table.
>Sometimes hidden in your lineage, your legacy, your bloodline.

They’re not always billionaires — but they carry the same violence.

We Carry the Shame They Should’ve Held

Most of us have lived through versions of this.
Micro-abuses. Normalized violations.
Things we were told to forget.
Compromises we were taught to make.

And those rare moments of defiance —
When we speak.
When we write.
When we say: Enough.

But still, we carry the aftermath.
Quietly. Carefully.
With a shame that was never ours to begin with.

Worse — we treat our demons with dignity.
We give them silence. Respect.
Peace.
While we self-combust in slow motion.

Writing About Waking Up with Anxiety and Trauma Still Hurts

I try to write every day.
Not to spiral, but to stay afloat.
Some days I choose surface-level truths — not out of denial, but out of self-preservation.

Because honesty heals. But honesty also cuts deep.

Here’s what I hate admitting:

Epstein is never far.
He sits across dinner tables.
He shares business leads.
>We invite him to festivals. We marry into his family.

We protect him.
Because when you stand up, you’re called “too much.”
Dramatic. Aggressive. Unstable.

Not by the truth-tellers — but by the enablers who still keep the monsters cloaked.

This Is the Era of Quiet Torture

So we carry guilt.

For speaking, surviving, remembering, not shutting up or shutting down too soon.
This is the era of quiet torture.

And the worst part?
We’re already living in it.

If you’re also waking up with anxiety and trauma each day, you’re not alone. And you’re not overreacting.

Sometimes just naming the monster is the beginning of the escape.