Freedom does not automatically restore the self. After prolonged degradation, release can arrive as emotional emptiness, disbelief, even a strange inability to feel joy.
The body is free, but the inner world may lag behind: habits of fear persist, trust is difficult, and meaning can feel distant after so much enforced meaninglessness.
The risk is a delayed collapse—a kind of inner disorientation where the end of suffering does not immediately produce life.
The final pressure is integration: whether the past becomes a permanent poison, or is transformed into a responsibility toward the future.