Mount Trauma

Two Creatures standing side by side

Appearing quite similar from the outside

The day seems to be quite clear

Nothing appears in the distance neither far nor near

Zoom in a little more,

they’re not the same as before.

Same hill in the distance, same open sky—

to one it feels easy… to one it feels sky-high.

One was made for land—dirt paths, hills, and track,

one was made for water—so the mountain feels like an attack.

The turtle sprints inside for his dear life

And the armadillo doesn’t understand:

What storm? What danger? What strife?

The sky is blue. The grass is bright.

So why does he look terrified?

Now he feels warm and safe inside,

under a blanket he hides.

Next to the fire he resides.

When he looks outside, all he feels is panic and fear.

He can’t even see that a friend is near—

only thunder in his ears.

Meanwhile outside,

there are 2 more armadillos who join his side.

No one can understand

why the turtle screamed and ran.

But one armadillo looks inside with only curiosity—

he doesn’t demand,

he just waits patiently.

As the other two judge him,

like he’s a pure atrocity.

From inside he hears

The comments that nearly bring him to tears.

They are sharp as stones, like little knives.

They hit the glass and shame crawls up his spine.

Now the turtle locks the door—

In an attempt to feel safer than before.

As he retreats inside his protective shell,

he starts to feel his own kind of hell—

locked inside by the flames…

beginning to realize that maybe the fire also brings him pain.

But what is he to do?

The fire is growing hotter—

but the storm is too.

He tiptoes to the window—

still scared, but curious too—

and finally he really sees:

the armadillo stayed, He never moved

And somehow, the storm begins starts to fade…

And underneath the storm are 2 faces looking to play

Outside, he sees two other creatures sliding,

laughing down the snowy run—

they look so light, like even gravity is something they outrun.

The turtle feels so much grief trapped inside.

Why can’t he be like them?

Just along for the ride.

How come instead

he’s here all alone inside—

The turtle decides to take a leap of faith,

because he learned there is a worse pain inside himself—and that’s the kind he can’t escape.

So he faces the fear…

because hiding doesn’t make it just dissapear

The armadillo reaches out—

and the turtle takes his hand.

It’s not that fear is gone forever,

it’s that now he understands:

Every steep mountain starts as a hill,

one step adds up to miles along the way

especially when a friend chooses to stay.

Pressure made him hide away,

made the storm feel here to stay.

But patience made the thunder quiet—

and gave him space to finally try it.

Not because he was forced to prove—

just held with love… and then he moved.

The initial reason I started making this cartoon was actually far different from what it ended up symbolizing to me.

I started making it months ago and left it, then picked it up again when something happened to me that was relevant, then left it, then finally came back to it, and each time it symbolized something new.

I guess that’s kind of the whole reason I make these, because they can be applied to so many different situations throughout our lives and those situations never stop coming up.

Oftentimes after I start it, I question myself like: is this really worth it? I only have so much time and energy—do I want to spend it on delivering this certain message?

So a lot of times I leave what I started and leave it unfinished… until it comes up again in my life. The same feelings. A similar situation. And I remember exactly why—yes, Dani, it really is that important. It really is a message worth delivering.

But with all of my messages, I need it to genuinely come from the heart or else I just can’t be connected to it. So I guess this process happens for a reason. Everything unfolds at the right time.

So I began making this cartoon when I was feeling really overwhelmed… as I tend to feel often.

I can’t remember exactly what triggered it, but I know it was something like:

the fear of approaching people or the fear of speaking Hebrew and sounding “stupid” but eventually it represented one of the most important things in my life and something incredibly close to my heart, which was meeting Tal.

(Those stories will have their own posts. For now, I just want to share the emotional message behind this particular cartoon.)

In the first panel, I wanted the two creatures to look almost the same from behind.

Because that’s the trick. From the outside, to other people, even to ourselves, we look the same.

We assume we should be capable of the same things. We assume the “hill” should be a hill for everyone.

But then you zoom in, and you realize… they’re not the same creature at all. One is an armadillo. One is a turtle. And suddenly the same landscape becomes two different worlds:

For the armadillo, it’s an easy path, it’s fun, but f or the turtle, it looks like a scary mountain with a storm

So the turtle does what a turtle does.He runs inside to seek safety. He bundles under a blanket by a fire where he feels warm, safe, and cozy.

And outside, the armadillos are genuinely confused— _why is he so scared of this little hill?
_ This is where we (the armadillos) and we(the turtles), always have two choices: we can judge him (ourselves) and yell, “What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you made it? Why are you being like this?” or we can wait… even if we don’t fully understand.

Pressure just feels like daggers hitting the house and it makes the turtle lock the door harder.
Pressure creates more panic, shutdown, and armor.

So the turtle stays “safe inside.” And at first… it really does feel safer.But over time, the fire grows stronger and stronger, and what once felt cozy starts to burn. That fire inside is avoidance. It’s the pain that comes from hiding and it grows slowly…until staying inside becomes its own kind of suffering.

What I really want to stress is that at first, when we’re afraid, we genuinely can’t see what’s at the top of the mountain. There’s no room for openness or curiosity when your body is in survival mode because your only instinct is to protect.

The turtle isn’t avoiding the mountain because he wants to, he’s avoiding it because to him it feels impossible, terrifying, unsafe. And the sad part is that… What lies at the top is the exact thing he longs for.

He looks outside and sees other creatures already up there, playing, laughing, living there lives and he wants to be like them, to be with them.

This is what trauma does. It can keep us “safe” from the very things we actually want.

And then there’s one armadillo who makes a different choice than the rest.
He may not fully understand what’s happening, and he may not be feeling the same storm—but he stays and waits anyway.He doesn’t judge, rush, or demand anything from the turtle; he just sits outside on the porch until the turtle is ready.

And when the turtle finally looks out, when the fire inside has gotten too hot to ignore, he sees that armadillo still there. And that’s what makes it doable.

So he steps outside. And when he does, the storm begins to pass, and the mountain starts to look more like a hill. It’s still not easy, but at least it’s possible, because every mountain starts with one step.

And the armadillo takes his hand, and they walk together.

I remember back to the first day of class this semester my teacher asked: _what actually causes someone to change?
_ And I answered: when you become so uncomfortable in your comfort that you feel there is no other option but to change.

That’s exactly what happens here. Change happens when the discomfort of the fire becomes worse than the fear of the mountain. And the outside looks even more possible when someone is patiently waiting there with you.

This is what I’m really talking about when I say resistance:For a lot of people, the ‘mountain’ is facing our pain. The thing we avoid, but so often, the thing we’re resisting is also the thing that leads us back to ourselves.

It’s also incredibly difficult to be the person on the outside. When you can’t feel someone’s storm, it’s easy to judge them and think you’d do it differently…and maybe you would—in that situation, but you have your own storms, your own mountains, your own history that makes certain hills feel impossible too. We are all turtles at different points in our lives. And sadly we often judge ourselves too, maybe even more harshly than all.

We all need people who don’t scream, “What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you made it?” we need people who may not experience our storm but can still walk with us through it. More than that, we need to stop judging OURSELVES as well, because compassion from ourselves is even more important than the compassion we receive form others.

What allows us to move isn’t force from ourselves or from others, it’s safety.

And honestly… that’s the entire concept of therapy.
Being met exactly where we are—with patience, love, and acceptance—because that’s what actually helps us grow, that’s what actually helps us have love, patience and acceptance for ourselves.