It means your body kept you alive through something terrible, and it has not yet learned that the terrible thing is over.

It will.

Mine did.

But it takes the time it takes, and there is no shame at all in the taking.

I want to say a little more about that survival mode, because understanding it changed my relationship to my own recovery, and it may help someone.

For months I was frustrated with myself — furious, even — that my body would not simply accept the good news.

The abusers were in prison.