Am I co-dependant on my trauma?

Am I co-dependant on my trauma?

featured in The Open Letters | by Isabella

The open Letters

Oct 15, 2026

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From

Isabella

💌

The voyage of a PTSD rebrand

My first substack post was an essay I’d written over 7 years ago called

‘It Feels Like Love’.

Essays or whatever it is was never something that had really found me. I enjoyed reading them, but didn’t think I could write to the likes of Jia Tolentino (

Trick mirror was my lockdown favourite

) And I still don’t hold myself to that sort of standard and won’t, I’m a screenwriter, that’s my strength, there’s no rebrand on the horizon.

But when I wrote

‘It Feels like Love’

I’d finally found a healthy outlet after my PTSD diagnosis that wasn’t in the bottom of a glass, or in tears, trauma dumping at 4am to a friend of a friend. It was a place to express my jumbled thoughts and iron them out.

It centres around learning to love yourself alongside trauma. It feels a little earnest but everyone under the age of 27 is an emotional terrorist anyway so I think I come across relatively sane. Plus there’s such a ‘ick’ culture nowadays around being sincere, personally I feel that holds a lot of people back from fully expressing themselves, cowed down by cringe culture.

I’m certainly not seeking any kind of validation or recognition here.. I’m a very ordinary person despite what my affirmations tell me every morning. I have nothing to offer other than an insight into my thoughts and struggles with overcoming PTSD or rather living with it. I’m still led by a symphony of hormones that make me feel fucking mental and my doctors swear naproxon the plaster for. I’m still dancing on the edge of sobriety and total dissolution. I’ve got deep rooted people pleasing energy. I still have no self control when it comes to indulging, I took an edible at an old school friend’s wedding that made me forget my christian name. I’m a fucking riot.

So it’s no wonder I’m finding myself back to where I started when I first began my essay side quest after being slingshot into my diagnosis. What I thought was the end of the pain was just the beginning. A long drawn out road - not to recovery, there’s no end goal; but rather mastering a balancing act of emotions. I’ve been in a constant cycle, endlessly making the same mistakes. Trying to not let thoughts turn into feelings.

Half the time, I don’t even know who I am. I spent my school years and my early twenties shapeshifting just to fit in, stuck in a cycle of emotional burnout that resets every six months. I’ve rewritten my identity so many times, changed how I think, how I see myself, who I

am

, that some days I worry I’ll get sectioned for taking Darwin’s theory of evolution a bit too personally.

But honestly if abusive men can rebrand themselves a thousand times (looking at you, Chris Brown, you fuck), then why the hell can’t I?

I channelled the anger I had into work. At 27 I transitioned from post production to drama and began work as a script coordinator, writers assistant and screen writer. Over these last 6 years I’ve worked on many HETV shows, then writers rooms. I threw myself into work with such conviction, I knew what I wanted, tenacious and fueled by my burning ambition. But I began to lose who I was. My identity was work, I was proud, I’d achieved so much, but I didn’t know who I was without it..

When the writers strike hit two years ago I’d just come out of a relationship/situationship that absolutely did not serve me in any way. I also began cleaning the flat of someone who ghosted me on hinge (I’ll save that for another post) Life was serving! Everyone was always asking me what are you writing now? With all this time on your hands! I don’t know?! My obituary?

I’d manage to subdue the PTSD that had me in a choke hold for so many years with only a few occasional outbursts, I thought I was doing ok. But the breakup plus the strike pulled the trigger and the floodgates opened. Public meltdown 101 baby.. Back to the drawing board of hell.

Echoes of abuse began to haunt me, night terrors, feelings of inadequacy and with no job I had to unpack who I was again. There was no distraction. Even with a lifetime ISA of therapy my crisis of consciousness was (and is often) still bleak.

How naive I was into thinking therapy had solved it all for me when it had in fact just opened the door. I’m frustrated that being traumatised has such a profound effect on me nearly 20 years later. But I’m learning to ride it out. There’s not much anger left, but I am incredibly tired. And who isn’t? Forced gratitude in a country teetering on the edge of facism is bleak. It’s hard to know how to feel at all anymore. Then there’s the comparison. It’s hard not to feel like a privileged brat, having the freedom to write this while so many others face widespread censorship.

This year I finally found the courage to report what had happened to me. To my surprise, I was met with overwhelming support — something I hadn’t experienced before. For so long, no one believed me. I had already lost one harassment case in court; they said it was my fault. I’m not sure why I was surprised. Once they found him it was time things got serious and I pulled back. Was getting validation from the police all I needed? Was my showrunner understanding the deep pain I felt enough?

Is it just consistent validation I consistently seek after not having it during an integral part of my brain developing as a teenager from someone I thought loved me?

I then nose dived into feeling like a failure for shelving the case. I’d reached a momentous milestone in my career. A writers room plus handling a court case just didn’t seem doable. I couldn’t have the past pulling me back. 8 months later I’m now asking the questions - Do I persevere with it? Am I letting down all survivors of abuse by not going to court? The only answer I have is, I’m still scared.

I seem to end

‘It Feels Like Love’

on such a high note but that’s not how I feel now. Yes I’ve learnt to love myself but I still battle with long term burnout. I can’t tolerate anything. Everything pisses me off whether it’s my co-worker eating (scraping) their overnight oats like they’re digging for gold in the yaruga river.

(Fresh Hell).

Cyclists

(Thanks for saving the planet, get the fuck out my way)

Or Labubus what the fuck are they about?

(I own one? Kiss kiss).

Maybe the bottom line is I’m the problem - just kidding! Seriously though, the only thing I can change is myself.

We’re living in the age of anxiety. It’s still my co-pilot—we co-parent my thoughts, for better or worse. There’s no divorce, no buyout; just coexistence. But lately, I’ve started to take the lead a little more. And that shift leaves me asking: what comes next?

Well, my ISA is empty, Oat lattes are foul, I’m not interested in Paris, no addidas gazelles here and no, I’ve never read Sally fucking Rooney. I’m 20 pounds deep in library fines, fighting for my life trying to finish my horny Argentinian book about a medium. I basically own Harringay council with the sheer amount of fines I’ve stacked up between my car and the library. (If anyone has a fetish for fines let me know. I’m your girl.) Is it just me that finds everything so utterly overwhelming?

Thankfully the past 6 months I’ve felt stronger. I’ve now found true love, fuck knows why because I often wake up looking like a rat carcass guarding the gates to hell. But all phases of life feel easy with him by my side. I can grow in love. But now I’m confronted with something new. Who am I without all of it? Was I codependent on my trauma? Is it what made me, me? Am I boring without it? Welcome to my prison of psychosis!!

Perhaps I’m on the cusp of a big change again, turning a corner to something bigger. Maybe I’m finally shedding the last 8 years. Or do I just need to bite the bullet and finally take that citalopram? Either way I’m at a biting point and whatever narrative ‘God’ is writing he’s a prick.

Funny how people are gentle w u when you die

About the Author:

Isabella is a screenwriter represented by Curtis Brown, with experience across acclaimed television productions, including The Wheel of Time and House of the Dragon. Through personal essays, she writes about the messier, less talked-about parts of adulthood, from PTSD and endometriosis to motherhood, identity, and the uncertainty of building a life that rarely follows the plan. Her writing is an honest space for the thoughts that don’t always fit neatly into a script, with one simple hope: that someone reading might feel a little less alone.

Substack ID:

Isabella

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