Unlocking the Silence of Survivor’s Guilt.

The Decade-Long Debt

A high-speed, head-on collision in the rain. One clear thought before impact: “Oh God, I’m going to die.”

That was fifteen years ago. I survived, but part of me didn’t. From nineteen until this year, I handed myself a silent sentence: self-punishment, self-sabotage, chaos.

I didn’t even know it had a name until recently: survivor’s guilt.

For over a decade, I believed I didn’t deserve to live well. Deep down, I felt I shouldn’t be here at all. That belief shaped every choice I made, every destructive cycle I walked back into. What I thought was just bad luck or brokenness was actually the shadow of one terrifying moment, and my nervous system never let me forget it.

The Black Hole of Memory

I’ve always excused the black hole in my memory. But this year, the truth forced its way in.

It started with a book, The Body Keeps the Score, that cracked my reality wide open. That led to a suicide attempt, which landed me in a mental ward where I finally got sober. I received the CPTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) diagnosis at the same time. For the first time, I realised I wasn’t “crazy”; I was living with trauma.

Since January I’ve been on a relentless mission to heal. Research, therapy, sobriety, trying to find my happy. I’ve uncovered childhood memories and recognised the pattern: the amnesia about the crash isn’t random. It’s a protective mechanism.

Trauma isn’t just the event itself. It’s the ghost of the event haunting your neural pathways, forcing you to live in its shadow. My shadow was a straight-jacket of guilt for fifteen years.

Now I’m here;. Sober, diagnosed, and asking: why is the car crash still walled off? Am I subconsciously fighting to keep that door closed, or is the memory simply too overwhelming for my brain to let me touch? Either way, the silence ends now.

The Evidence of the Debt

Fifteen years of self-punishment looked like this: a continuous cycle of chronic self-sabotage manifested through:

• Pushing everyone away.

• Leaving jobs and dreams behind, actively choosing instability.

• Substance abuse to numb unworthiness.

• Attracting and remaining in abusive relationships.

I drank from the time I left the hospital, stopped briefly when I had my daughter, then jumped back on when the deaths started coming. Two of the ex-partners from my abusive relationships have since died. I was actively attracting chaos because on some level, I believed chaos was all I deserved.

Last year, I was with quite possibly Satan himself. He cheated,got me back on the wagon, and had me arrested when I finally fought back. That relationship was the physical, screaming evidence of the internal punishment I was inflicting.

Even now, when I try to focus on that “I’m going to die” memory, my body speaks first. The ringing in my ears gets louder, my stomach churns. It’s a visceral, overwhelming “oh f***” - my nervous system screaming, do not go back there.

The Turning Point

I tried to get sober at at Muse, but panic attacks forced me out. Chaos followed me again.

The final straw was this January. HR at my last driving job gave out my number after a very clear “no” had been made (girls, women, HR: DONT. EVER. DO. THIS.). The chaos from yet another broken soul (remember Satan?) pulled me back into drinking until January, which is when I finally realised I couldn’t keep circling the same destruction.

And then came the terrifying clarity in my relationship with Jayde: I didn’t want this one to be another repeat. How many times can you go through the same pattern before you realise you’re the common denominator?

Not “the problem” in a self-loathing way, but the linchpin for change. I had to stop punishing myself, not just for me, but to keep this new sober life. To protect what I’ve fought for this year.

Complex PTSD had me moving in circles. The circle ends now.

The End of the Sentence

I don’t know what memories will rush in now that I’ve committed to taking down this mental barrier. I don’t know how painful it will be to confront what happened on that rainy road.

But I know one thing: the debt is paid. The sentence of self-punishment has been served, and I’m commuting the rest of the time.

This blog post is my declaration: the silence ends now. My future will not be dictated by a ghost from the past. I am ready to unlock the trauma, face the fear, and finally give this survivor a chance to live.

I walked away from that crash but left part of myself behind. This is me turning back, not to die, but to retrieve her. There's no going back.