After years of waiting, surviving, and healing, I thought the wedding would be the moment everything finally came together. But what I didn’t expect was that the ceremony would open even deeper layers of my healing.
This piece is a reflection written in the weeks after my wedding – a time that brought deep joy, but also unexpected layers of healing. It’s about what happens when you finally reach the life you’ve been fighting for, and your body doesn’t yet know how to rest inside it.
A Note From Me…
When I started even thinking about writing about my wedding, I thought it would be a story about happiness and peace… the moment that everything finally comes together after years and decades of trauma, illness, waiting, and healing.
But what I didn’t fully expect was how that joy would also open old doors that I had opened at some point on my healing journey, but never quite fully walked through or embraced.
Oftentimes, healing doesn’t look like the perfect day. Sometimes it looks like standing in a beautiful pink dress with a full heart and realizing that the body, after decades of survival, is still learning what safety feels like. And that can be incredibly painful and tough to get through.
The emotions that surfaced weren’t proof that something was going wrong – they were proof that something in me was finally ready to feel, to be released, and to heal.
This isn’t about disappointment in my wedding, marriage, or anything else surrounding it. It’s about the somewhat confusing and strange truth that happiness and grief can coexist, and that even in the brightest moments, the past can come up… not to “ruin” the present, but to be released and set free by it.
I share this not to rewrite the day, but to honor it fully – exactly as it was, and as it continues to unfold within me.
The Wedding and the Miracle of the Day
It was a beautiful day on the 9th of October – not even a full month back now. The air was soft, the sun was out, but not too bright or hot that it would upset my already somewhat irritated skin on my face… it was perfect.
We had to change all our wedding plans a week prior, and my skin and body felt every ounce of it — the excitement and the strain.
I had the upstairs of the house we rented last minute to myself to get ready, and my mother was helping me. Everyone was ready downstairs, waiting for me.
I looked out the window into the back garden at The Garden Flat, where we were about to get married, and saw my husband standing there in his tux with his parents.
Tears welled up in my eyes immediately just seeing him there, waiting for me. My whole body felt the truth of the moment: This is really happening.
I took a deep breath and told myself to keep it together, that I could do this, and started making my way down the stairs that led straight to the garden. I held onto my husband’s arm until we made it to the officiant who was waiting for us.
We both stood in front of one another, holding hands, and I felt a tear coming down my cheek even before she began speaking. I didn’t care – I let it fall onto my pink dress, holding onto his hands tighter than ever, like I was trying not to fall over or float away.
After everything I (and we) had been through … from years of survival in TSW, to long-distance separation, and constant changes, the fact that we were both standing there, especially me, felt like a miracle.
My parents were both there, standing near me. My dad was taking photos, and my mom was holding my bouquet. Her smile came from decades of worry, a mix of love, relief, and disbelief.
During the worst of TSW, I had always said my biggest wish was for my parents to see me happy again before they leave this world… to know that all their effort and love was worth it. And that wish came true that day. I could feel it in my chest and my entire body – my heart was so full that it almost hurt.
My husband and I both barely got through our vows, both of us bawling our eyes out through them. It was the most emotional and beautiful moment of my life.
After the ceremony, everything blurred together: laughter, light, food, music. I felt my joy reflected back through everyone else’s joy on their faces. But underneath, my body was still trembling.
It really was the most beautiful, happiest day of my life. But even in that beauty, there was a quiet echo of survival and pain… the awareness of my skin still irritated, my nerves and mind hyper alert, and my body unsure if the calm would last.
The Space After Survival
In the days after, when my husband and I finally got to be alone, I expected peace. But instead, I felt restless and anxious.
While away with him for three weeks, I found myself suddenly angry for no clear reason, then tearing up, then sick with a UTI that felt like it was holding far more than infection.
My body… the one that carried me through war, TSW, and trauma… was trying to understand safety and peace, and it felt foreign and strange.
This is what people don’t often tell you about healing: When you finally reach the place you prayed for, your body doesn’t instantly believe it. It needs time to unlearn the hyper-vigilance that once kept you alive.
Joy starts to push against the same walls that once held pain, and those walls start to crack. Not because something is wrong, but because the heart is stretching open wider to fit something new.
Now, I’m learning that the space after survival isn’t empty or hollow as it may feel. It’s full: of love, gratitude, confusion, exhaustion, and tiny flashes of peace.
It’s standing beside the person you love most and realizing that tears can mean both joy and grief, that the body often cries out when it recognizes safety for the first time.
So now, I’m trying to stop chasing what’s next. I’m letting the quiet be its own milestone. I sit with my parents and listen to my dad’s stories and voice, and laugh with my mom. I let sunlight land on my skin and remind my body: It’s okay now. You made it.
The space after survival isn’t an empty void… it’s a meadow growing where the fire once was.
It’s the place where beauty and healing finally learn to coexist.
Learning to Feel Good Again
When my husband flew back to Norway and I got to my parents’ house, everything hit me like a wave. The wedding was over, the photos were taken, my dress and wedding stuff were put away in the closet, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I kept thinking, This is supposed to be the happy ending.
But it didn’t feel like an ending.
It felt like standing in a new world that looked familiar but sounded different, like the noise had been turned down and I hadn’t yet learned how to live without the static.
During the worst years of TSW, my only goal was to make it through the day, to somehow survive the pain, itch, burning, psychological and emotional torture of it all. I was only focused on how to get through it one minute, one hour, one moment at a time. Every single moment was a fight for survival and a test of endurance.
Now, for the first time in years, I wasn’t in survival mode. And my body still doesn’t quite know what to do with that.
The stillness, peace, joy… it all felt weird. Almost wrong. I found myself feeling a weird hollow space where the suffering and survival was. It was as if a part of me was missing the structure and sense of purpose it gave me.
When peace finally came, it didn’t feel peaceful. It felt empty and almost boring – like something important was missing. I realize now that the missing piece isn’t struggle and suffering.; it was direction. I had spent so long focused on getting better that I forgot how to simply live.
It’s a strange thing when joy, peace, love and other positive emotions feel unsafe. However, I now notice it more and more in the moment as it is happening, and it is no longer just buried in my subconscious.
Sometimes I’d be laughing with my husband outside in the sun and suddenly my chest would tighten – that panicky voice would come up, the one that says “this can’t last.” It’s as if the body, after years and decades of pain and trauma just doesn’t quite trust good feelings.
Pleasure lights up the same nervous system that once braced against pain, and it takes time for the body to learn the difference.
So I am starting small. When happiness appears – whether it’s a delicious meal, sunlight peering through my window, a loved ones laughter in the next room – I do my best to pause and remind myself that I am safe in the moment. That it is safe to feel good.
Sometimes I have to say it more than once. Often, I don’t believe it right away. But over time, the fear is slowly softening and releasing its grip on me.
This is the part of healing that isn’t talked about enough…. Everyone talks about the fight to get better and to “heal”, but not so much about the slow and oftentimes difficult surrender into well being, into peace, into love.
It’s learning that safety doesn’t mean waiting for the next flare up or for the shoe to drop again. It’s teaching the body that peace isn’t the prelude to pain. It’s giving yourself permission to feel joy without guilt.
The Integration
Now that the wedding and trip are over, I am slowly getting into a different rhythm… not by pushing for huge goals or milestones, but by simply listening and doing my best to stay open. By letting my body tell me when it’s time to rest, when it’s time to move, when it’s time to simply exist and be. I work a little, I write a little, I sit outside and watch the wind move through the trees, and try to remind myself that it is okay to feel peace and to be at peace.
I remind myself that life doesn’t need to be dramatic or loud to be meaningful. It is often found in the smallest things.
When my mom leaves soon for Bosnia and my husband comes back for the holidays, I know I’ll feel the weight of huge change again… another wave of emotion, another transition. But now, I’m not as afraid of it. Because even if my body still trembles and shakes at times, even if my skin still flares or the old fears resurface, I know that I can meet it all with softness. I know that my body is working for me, not against me. And no matter what happens, I know healing is always possible and never out of reach.
That I can hold both the love and the ache. That healing doesn’t mean everything is suddenly “fixed” or “perfect”. It doesn’t mean never having a flare up on my skin, or having old traumas triggered. It means I’ve learned to stay open in the middle of it all and feel it all – no matter how messy it can get. After all, that’s what being human is all about.
The space after survival is where life begins again for me…. quietly, slowly, imperfectly, but honestly.
And learning to feel good again and to simply be – is the real ceremony, the one that will keep going long after the vows have been said.
If this piece spoke to something in you, you can subscribe to Healing the Layers on Substack for new essays, reflections, and notes on healing in layers — through the body, heart, mind, and meaning.
If you’re new here, I also made a free guide called Where Am I? to help you gently locate what feels loudest right now and find one honest next step.
Trauma. A word that has haunted me for most of my life. A word I feel is often misunderstood. Yet, it permeates through the entire collective, affecting each of us in ways we may or may not be aware of. Trauma touches all of us, though we tend to think it has to be something…
A letter to the little girl in the hospital bed, and to anyone still waiting to be told they deserve to be here by Nina Ajdin The Letter You deserved to live. Even though everything around you smelled like death and made you feel undeserving of it. Even though the sounds outside were gunshots and…
Because healing, writing, and truth-telling isn’t exactly funded by Big Pharma 😉 Hi friends, Over the past few months, I’ve worked on pouring my heart out even more into this space — writing about eczema, TSW, trauma, war, the politics of healing, and everything in between. Many of you have reached out with love, support,…
Why It’s Okay To Prioritize Your Healing Over Advocacy When I first started Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW) over a decade ago now, I felt like my entire life was upended and flipped upside down. I knew it would be difficult and painful, but the suffering, isolation, and seemingly endless battle with my body ended up…
Embracing my story and voice – and all the fear that comes with it For as long as I can remember, I have always loved words. As a refugee from a war torn country, starting my life on a whole different continent halfway across the globe was quite rocky, to say the least. Instead of…
The air is different now. Clearer. Like there was a storm before, or fog — and the world finally settled enough for me to breathe again. Everyone is asleep. The house is quiet. And for the first time all day, I can hear myself. Not the version of me responding to people. Not the version…
