When Safety Isn’t Familiar

Learning to Trust Again With Complex Trauma

I cried when I read this story.

Not because I love cats and the story warmed my heart (I do, and it did)… but because it held something deeper.

“She wasn’t like the other cats in the area—she had an air of mystery, a sense of independence that was both captivating and intimidating.”

I’ve seen my “independence” on my healing journey as a source of strength, but honestly, it has been exhausting and lonely to carry everything. It has fed the story that I’m too much for others, so I just need to deal with everything on my own. Many relationships in my life have affirmed this belief, so I retreat further into myself, shutting others out even more.

“There was no meow, no sound. Just the quiet intensity of her stare—a look that was caught somewhere between fear and hope, an unspoken plea.”

As I read about the mother cat—her gaze as an unspoken call for help, her body collapsed in exhaustion—I felt a deep resonance within me. It mirrored the week I’ve just spent after an encounter triggered a core wound of everything being my fault. I began looping through trauma, tangled in a shame spiral for being so affected by a trigger, bringing in another core wound of not belonging, wanting to isolate—move out of my communal home, push my partner away, lick my wounds in solitude.

Ashamed, not just of the trigger, but of the fact that I still get triggered after all the years of inner work. After all the therapy, all the healing.

But something in me softened as I continued reading.

“I knew she was scared, vulnerable, and exhausted.”

I could feel my own heart, somewhere between fear and hope, opening again.
Hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ve finally found what’s been missing all along: the safety that comes from being with myself. Not fixing. Not analyzing. Just being.

Hope that comes from learning to regulate my nervous system, to listen to what my body has been whispering for years.

I saw the younger parts of me—the ones who’ve been working so hard to keep me safe—trying to anticipate pain, trying to think my way out of everything. They’ve been living in the past, clinging to stories that once protected me but now keep me cut off from presence.

“I didn’t expect her to trust me right away. I knew it would take time. I returned day after day…”

When I read how the author returned to the cat slowly, gently, building trust over time, I felt my body cry out for that same kind of love.
Skeptical. But desperate to be met in a way that doesn’t ask her to perform or prove—just to land somewhere safe.

“And so, I set up a soft, warm box in a quiet corner of the house, a sanctuary where she could bring her kittens.”

I imagined that cardboard box tucked into a quiet corner of my heart.
And I thought:
That’s what I need.
A quiet corner.
A soft place to begin again.
A place to come home to myself.

This story gave me hope.

Not the kind that pushes or promises quick change.
But the kind that whispers:
You don’t have to figure it all out.
You can come back gently.
You can build trust with your own body.

It amazes me that I’ve spent years learning about trauma—reading the books, doing the work—and only recently discovered how central the nervous system is to it all. I’ve learned that true healing requires patience, it takes time.

I’ve realized how dysregulation has shaped not only my emotions, but my health as well.
How I’ve been living in a dorsal (shutdown) state for almost eight years.
How my body has been crying out—through chronic illness, through fatigue, through emotional outbursts—begging me to slow down and listen.

And how I didn’t even realize how disconnected I’d become until now.

“She started to settle, to trust—slowly, but surely. She was learning that not every hand was a threat, that not every space was unsafe. She was learning that love didn’t always come with strings attached.”

In many ways, my journey is just beginning.

But for the first time, it doesn’t feel like a race.

It feels like something sacred. It’s a rewiring, not just in my mind, but in my body.

I finally feel ready enough to meet my body with love.
To do the somatic work that once felt too painful to even attempt.
To offer myself the same gentleness the author offered that cat. The same gentleness and compassion I’ve given others, but couldn’t seem to give myself.

“And with each passing day, she breathes a little easier.”

And just like her—
I’m starting to breathe again.

If you're looking for a space to feel seen, heard, understood, and supported, join the Self-Love Sanctuary by subscribing to my blog. A place where you can retreat to the safety of being held in loving compassion, by my words, I hope you feel some hope and know that you are not alone.

Love Always,
Becca

This post was inspired by “A Story of Compassion and Unspoken Trust: The Journey of a Feline Mother and Her Kittens” published on IFEG.info.