The Body Keeps the Score: Learning to Let Go, Slow Down, and Finally Put Myself on the List

I didn’t get here overnight.

It happened slowly — like most things do when you’re too busy surviving to notice the warning signs.

First, it was the exhaustion. But I’m a mom of five — that’s just part of the job, right? Then it was the headaches. The brain fog. The feeling of being outside of my body while life kept pulling me forward. Then came the pain. My arms. My legs. My back. Numbness. Tingling. Dizziness. And a level of fatigue that sleep could no longer fix.

And that’s when I had to stop telling myself this is normal. Because it wasn’t.

The Weight I Didn’t Realize I Was Carrying

As a neurodivergent mom raising five neurodivergent kids, I know what survival mode feels like. I’ve lived in it for years. Balancing appointments, meltdowns, therapies, school meetings, and sensory overload — while still trying to show up for a job I loved with everything in me.

For six years, I poured my heart into my work. It wasn’t just a job — it was a part of my identity. It was purpose. It was community. It was where I felt useful, capable, and valued in a world that often doesn’t know where to place moms like me.

But the thing about long-term stress is — it doesn’t just live in your head. It lives in your body. And eventually, if you don’t listen to the whispers — your body will start screaming.

The Hardest Decision I Never Wanted to Make

After months of struggling, after doctor’s appointments and more questions than answers, after nights of crying in pain while still showing up every day for everyone else — I had to face a truth I didn’t want to admit.

I couldn’t keep going like this.

And so, I made the heartbreaking decision to mutually part ways with the job I loved.

Not out of anger. Not because I wasn’t capable. But because I had reached the end of what my body could carry.

It was grief.It was loss. It was also love — for myself, for my kids, for the person I am outside of productivity and people-pleasing. Because the hard truth is: No job, no role, no amount of dedication is worth sacrificing your health, your family, or yourself.

Long-Term Stress & The Nervous System: What Nobody Talks About

Chronic stress doesn’t just make you “tired.” It rewires your nervous system. It keeps your body in survival mode — flooded with cortisol, stuck in fight or flight, unable to rest, unable to heal.

That looks like:

• Chronic pain

• Digestive issues

• Hormone imbalances

• Memory problems

• Anxiety & depression

• Autoimmune triggers

• Burnout so deep it feels like losing yourself

This isn’t weakness. This isn’t “laziness.” This is what happens when you’ve spent too long putting yourself last.

What I’m Learning Now

Right now, I’m in the middle of an ongoing diagnostic process. We’re trying to figure out what’s happening inside my body. Is it autoimmune? Neurological?Multiple Sclerosis? Lupus? Nervous system dysregulation? Something else entirely? I don’t know yet. And that’s scary.

But I know this: I am learning — painfully, slowly — to care for myself the way I’ve always cared for everyone else. Not as an afterthought. Not when everything falls apart. But now.

Final Thoughts: You Deserve To Be Well, Too

If you’re here — exhausted, hurting, waiting on answers — I see you.

If you’re running on empty, holding up your world while your body quietly unravels — I’m with you.

We are not meant to live in survival mode forever.

Balance isn’t a luxury. Rest isn’t selfish. Asking for help isn’t weakness.

And letting go — even of something you love — doesn’t mean you failed.

It means you finally realized you matter too.

Because if I want my kids — my beautiful, neurodivergent, resilient kids — to grow up believing their needs matter…

Then I have to believe mine do, too.