Silent Screams
There I was on the bathroom floor with my headphones on, listening to One Step Closer by Linkin Park, silently screaming. I was in tears, my whole body hurt, and no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t getting better. In fact, I was getting worse. I was sleeping 14–16 hours a day and it still wasn’t enough. My kids at the time were 8, 5, and two 3-year-olds. Everything hurt, my hands barely worked. I couldn’t tie my kids’ shoes or brush their hair. My feet hurt. I could barely stand. I couldn’t even walk up the stairs without running out of breath. When I walked down the stairs, I would have to rest.
I felt like I was slowly dying.
The sickness carried on, but so did I, the best I could. I hired a house cleaner and a sitter to help a few days a week with the kids. My oldest daughter would drive up on Sundays and stay until Tuesday to help with the house, the little ones, and meal prep. I was surviving on borrowed strength. In the quiet moments, I remember thinking, I adopted these children… and now I’m leaving their father to raise them if I don’t get better. The guilt of that thought haunted me, but it was real. Life went on, even when I didn’t have answers. A couple years passed with countless doctor visits and endless tests that led nowhere. Until 2020, right at the beginning of COVID, when I finally got answers. I was diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases, along with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
Finally, I had a name for the pain. But that didn’t mean the healing had begun. After the diagnosis came the questions. Why me? How did this happen? So, I did what I always do, researched. I learned that autoimmune disease can be linked to long-term stress, trauma, and emotional suppression. When your body has lived in fight-or-flight for years, your immune system begins to turn on itself. It’s like your cells forget the difference between danger and safety, between an invader and your own tissue. And the truth hit me hard: If I wanted to feel better, I had to take care of me. Because no one else could. Because no one else knew what it felt like to live in this body but me.
I had to go on medication, including antidepressants. On top of everything else, I was also dealing with perimenopause and early menopause symptoms and those were brushed off too. Both my gynecologist and my primary doctor pushed antidepressants, and eventually, I caved. That’s how desperate I was. Because I hate taking pills. I was exhausted, broken open, and out of options. The antidepressants helped a little, the fog lifted just enough to see daylight again. The Plaquenil helped too. But then came the steroids.
Steroids in a shot.
Steroids in a pill.
Steroids, steroids, and more steroids.
I gained weight. I lost parts of myself.
But I also started to learn the truth of my body, how it had been carrying me through chaos for years without rest. By 2021, I was finally off the antidepressants and beginning to feel more like me again. A quieter version, but clearer. Stronger. Still standing. And that’s when I realized, the silent screams never truly disappear. They just change shape. Now, when I scream, it isn’t from despair. It’s release. I still have those silent screams, but not as often. Sometimes, I scream to let it go. Because holding everything in, all the pain, the pressure, the pretending, that’s what made me sick. So if you ever see me driving down the road, music loud, screaming at the top of my lungs…Just know
