This past week, I had a mass removed from my shoulder.
Simple procedure.
The numbing worked. I didn’t feel a thing.
But I heard everything.
The slicing.
The sizzling.
The cauterization.
The smell of my own body burning.
And suddenly, I couldn’t move.
Not from pain — but from something deeper.
An internal freeze. A full-body no.
Not danger exactly. But violation.
My mind kept repeating: You’re safe. You’re fine.
But my body didn’t believe it.
And that’s what surprised me:
How my whole system responded to something I didn’t even “feel.”
The nausea. The tension. The freeze.
Not because I was in danger — but because my body was on high alert.
The smell, the sound — they registered as threat.
Even though I felt no pain, my system was overwhelmed by everything I sensed — but couldn’t stop.
I was safe, but it didn’t feel safe.
But still . . . it felt like an invasion.
And I realized:
Even when we’re numb, we’re affected.
That’s the part we rarely name — the silent toll.
The subtle override.
The internal no that gets buried under logic and performance.
We confuse numbness with protection.
But sometimes, numbness is just delay.
Our nervous systems keep sensing.
Our bodies keep holding.
The truth keeps surfacing.
Feeling nothing doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
Sometimes it means everything is —
just beneath the surface,
just outside of language,
just waiting for us to listen.
This isn’t a story about pain.
It’s a story about what we carry when no one sees us flinch.
It’s a story about how brave it is to name
what never got permission to hurt.
Where have you told yourself “I’m fine” — even as your body said otherwise?
What have you learned to numb in order to stay strong?
Can you recall a time your senses screamed even when nothing hurt?
And what would it feel like… to stop overriding that knowing?
Author’s Note:
This essay came from a moment I didn’t expect to be meaningful.
But isn’t that how truth often arrives?
Not in the big, dramatic awakenings —
but in the subtle flickers of knowing.
This moment caught me off guard.
No pain. No drama. Just a body that wouldn’t let me ignore what it knew
I share this not because I have it all figured out,
but because I know how many of us are practiced at pushing through.
At performing “fine.”
But there’s wisdom in the freeze.
In the tension.
In the part of you that still remembers what’s real.
Sometimes, it’s the quiet truths that rise when we stop overriding ourselves.
I’m still learning how to listen to the parts of me
that don’t always speak in words.
Maybe you are, too.
— Carolina
If this spoke to you, consider sharing it with someone else who’s ready to hear their own voice again — or give it a restack to ripple it wider.
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