When does survival mode end?

I’ve spent years in survival mode.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t function. I could, because I had to. There was always something that needed dealing with, something that needed fixing, something I needed to get through. My head was constantly moving on to whatever came next before I’d even had a chance to process what had just happened.

You tell yourself you’ll breathe when this is sorted. You’ll slow down when things settle. You’ll start enjoying life again when you get through whatever is happening right now. But sometimes things don’t really settle. One thing ends and something else takes its place, and after a while you become so used to living in that heightened state that it just feels normal.

I think that’s what survival mode has been for me. Not falling apart, but never really being able to stop. Constantly thinking ahead, anticipating problems, trying to make everything okay. Even when nothing is actually wrong in that exact moment, part of you is already looking for what might be.

There isn’t much room to just exist when your brain works like that.

And then, at some point, you look backwards instead of forwards and realise two years have gone. Maybe three. Maybe five.

There are photos that prove I was there. Birthdays happened, Christmases happened, my son got older. There were good days in amongst all of it, I know there were. But when I try to remember some of those years properly, it feels like I’m looking at memories that aren’t even mine.

I know I lived them. I was physically there. But so much of it is a disconnected blur because mentally I was always somewhere else, dealing with something, worrying about something or trying to work out how I was going to get through the next thing.

I don’t think I realised at the time how much of my life I wasn’t really present for. I was surviving it.

And now I keep coming back to the same question. When does survival mode actually end?

Is it when the thing that put you there is over? When life becomes more stable? When there is finally nothing urgent left to fix? Because I’m starting to realise it probably isn’t that simple.

Sometimes your circumstances change before you do. Things can become quieter, safer, more stable, and yet something inside you is still running at the same speed. You’re still waiting for something to happen. Still trying to get ahead of the next problem. Still telling yourself you can rest later.

Maybe that’s one of the strangest parts of coming out of survival mode. For so long, your life has been organised around one question: What do I need to deal with next?

When that isn’t the question anymore, you’re left with one that somehow feels even harder to answer.

What do I do with my life when I’m not just trying to survive it?

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