What Healing Really Looks Like: Learning to Live With a PTSD Diagnosis

I recently started my 100th rewatch of Harlem on Prime. Apparently, I am addicted to Camille and Ian’s chaos, but I also love seeing the sisterhood and character development over the course of three seasons. (If you’re from the cast or crew and you’re reading this, please give us a film, lol) Since the start of the show, Quinn has always been someone I related to the most—the fun, loving, quirky, hopeless romantic. Season 2 gave us a lot to unpack. We see Quinn battle the ups and downs of depression and not really know what she was experiencing until a surprise visit from her mother while on a trip to Puerto Rico with her best friends.

By the time the trip rolls around, Quinn has hit a breaking point in her depression and learns that, from her mother, her father’s side of the family has been battling it for generations. I remember empathizing with Quinn the first time I saw that scene, but watching it again this time, it hit a little differently. Something arose within me—a fear I hadn’t considered before. I thought about my own family. About the things that get passed, not just our features or our mannerisms, but the genetic makeup that none of us ever really ask for. I thought about my son and future children and how much I never want them to feel like they have to suffer because of something I had to fight through. I want them to see me as strong and resilient. But more than that, I want them to see me at peace.

When I received my PTSD diagnosis in early April of this year, I didn’t expect it to unravel me the way it did. Since the Fall of 2024, I had been moving through months of uncertainty and stress that slowly compounded until I no longer recognized myself. I was constantly on alert, running on little sleep, my body storing memories my mind didn’t know how to process. I kept telling myself things would settle, that I just needed a break. But the breaks never came. I had been navigating a season of exhaustion, emotional, physical, and spiritual. I thought maybe it was just a case of burnout. But my body was holding on to months of trauma, harassment, and constant vigilance; it slowly began to shut down in ways I couldn’t explain. I wasn’t just tired; I was terrified. My nervous system was shot, stuck in a state of survival mode.

Initially, the diagnosis felt like a relief. Finally, a name for what I was experiencing. Finally, proof that I wasn’t imagining it or “going crazy.” But almost immediately, that relief turned into grief. Because when you’ve been in survival mode for so long, finally having a word for it means you have to stop pretending it’s not real. You have to face it.

The weeks that followed were a blur of appointments: doctors, therapists, psychiatrists, specialists, each trying to piece together how I got here. I was as honest as I could be, and in full transparency, it was hard to put words to something that lives in your body more than your mind.

Unfortunately, I was still enduring. Even as I prioritized my healing immediately after the diagnosis, I continued to experience different forms of manipulation, harassment, and emotional harm that often caused me to regress. Trauma doesn’t always arrive as one big event; it usually builds slowly, through small, repeated ruptures that convince you to stop trusting your own peace.

The repetitiveness of those ruptures eventually led to consistent, severe paranoia and panic attacks. My therapist became concerned. She reminded me that there’s no way to truly heal while you’re still being harmed. The reality of her statement broke me, and I spent months praying to feel differently, to get this weight off my back. I felt like a fish out of water, flailing for air. More than that, I felt like a little girl in need of protection, craving safety in a world that kept shifting beneath my feet. What I didn’t expect was how humbling it would be to learn to accept help; to sit in a psychiatrist’s office and talk about medication, to realize that I could no longer think or pray my way out of this. For years, I’ve been the strong one, the one who could reset herself with a trip to my altar, meditation, or a walk. This time, I needed more.

That’s been the hardest part: redefining what strength looks like.

One doctor mentioned medication. Another suggested therapy two to three times a week. Another recommended sleep aids, which only made my nightmares and panic attacks worse. I kept bouncing between wanting to fix it fast and feeling scared to surrender to the process. There’s a peculiar feeling that comes with being “treated”, as if a part of you misses the illusion of control.

I used to believe that strength meant endurance, the ability to push through, no matter how much it hurt. But lately, I’ve realized strength sometimes looks like surrender. It’s letting your body rest. It’s saying, “I need help.” It’s choosing medication when pride says you shouldn’t need it. It’s trusting your healing even when you don’t understand it.

And sometimes, strength looks like falling asleep to holiday jazz.

Yes, holiday jazz. It sounds funny even to me, but after weeks of nightmares and restless nights, it’s the one thing that’s brought me peace—the soft hum of Nat King Cole, the piano of the A Charlie Brown Christmas album. Charlie Brown has primarily been a source of my own nighttime sanity, but also an understanding mechanism for my son, who couldn’t quite understand why we were listening to holiday music at the most random time of the year. There’s something about the nostalgia of it; the way it reminds me of safety, of light, of simple joy. Somehow, it’s become the one thing that helps me sleep soundly again. There’s a lesson in that, I think; that healing doesn’t have to look like this big, grand thing. Sometimes it’s in the smallest comforts that remind you you’re safe now.

Other things that have helped me stay grounded include creating daily rituals that signal to my body we’re okay. I light a candle in the morning as soon as I sit down at my desk to sign in for therapy sessions or do morning grounding exercises online. Taking my medication without shame. Speaking to myself kindly on the days that still feel heavy. Letting myself laugh again, even when it feels out of place. I’ve learned that healing isn’t a linear process. Some days, I wake up feeling calm and grounded. Other days, I feel like I’m back in the thick of it all. But I’ve stopped seeing those days as setbacks. They’re just reminders that recovery is practice.

There’s also a grief that comes with growth. It’s me realizing how much life has changed and how little control we sometimes have over its timing. But underneath that grief, I’ve found something steadier: peace. And this is not me being performative, but rather accepting that I can’t undo what’s happened; I can only learn to live differently because of it.

I often think about my future children and my son, wondering what he’ll remember from this time. I used to worry he would only see the days I struggled to get out of bed. Now I hope he sees the other part too, the part where I kept choosing to try again, even when it was hard. The part where I learned that healing doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine; it means finding beauty in the process of rebuilding.

But I haven’t been in this fight alone. And that’s what’s been saving me.

My family stepped in like a soft landing, checking in, making sure I was eating, and ensuring I didn’t feel invisible in my pain. The doctors and specialists who treated me never once questioned this Black woman’s pain. They believed me. They moved with urgency and empathy, and for the first time in a long time, I felt seen by the people meant to care for me.

Then there are my girls, my tribe, who have been on speed dial, who have listened to me cry, vent, and sometimes breathe on the other end of the line. They’ve nursed me back to myself in ways only sisterhood can, showing up with laughter, food, prayers, or silence when words were too heavy.

And my advocates. The angels who quite literally showed up in my life by the grace of God. The ones who said, “We’re not letting you walk through this alone, our community is your community.” They’ve stood beside me through every appointment, every meeting, every moment I doubted my own strength. Their presence has been a reminder that even in the most isolating moments of trauma, community can be medicine.

Healing, I’m learning, is not about returning to who you were before the pain. It’s about meeting the version of yourself who survived and learning to love her, too.

So no, no, for a lot of reasons, I don’t talk much about what and who led to this diagnosis. Some things are still too much to discuss. But, what I can say is that it changed me in necessary ways. It forced me to slow down. It taught me to listen to my body, to prioritize rest, and to let go of control. And maybe that’s the real transformation; not that I’ve “overcome” anything, but that I’m learning how to live with myself in more intentional ways.