Only after losing my twin did I realise how much of my life had never needed explaining. We each carried our trauma separately and kept much of it to ourselves. After her death, everything became louder – the memories, the loneliness, and my own identity, misplaced through her loss.
In the three and a half years since she died, I have also faced a succession of health problems and setbacks. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I sustained another mouth injury, biting into something I didn't realise was hard.
Having spent decades surviving with anxiety, depression, autism, sensory processing issues, cerebral palsy and long-term trauma, there is very little spare energy left for processing pain. Survival comes first for me. The impact of my twin's loss has been felt through my health, both physically and emotionally. The structure of my life has changed, and trauma still sits at the centre of that change.
I sometimes feel as though I am going backwards. Not because I had everything worked out, but because life was ticking over. I understood the brief. My routines were orderly – they made sense within our shared life. Now the papers the brief was written on are torn apart and I struggle to move forward, to put one foot in front of the other. I still need to heal.
Loss exposes fractures, as it does for many people. The reality is that the person I was most connected to is gone.
At times, it feels as though I am carrying a second grief layered on top of the first. Tinnitus is my biggest reminder.
Trauma doesn't disappear simply because time passes. Sometimes it sits quietly at the edge; when a loss, an illness, or a significant change brings it back into view. Reading this may have prompted you to think about where your own trauma sits now. Has it become louder, or does it still live in places you rarely visit? There is no right or wrong answer. Understanding where it resides is often part of understanding ourselves.
Trauma isn't small, and it isn't a weakness. It's exhausting, and emotionally painful. Loss has changed the structure of my life, and I'm still learning how to live within it.
