As sensitive as I am, I get hurt a lot! And all that hurt usually (literally always) takes a huge toll on me. I’m so bad at letting things go and be what they are.
There are many things I need to heal in my life, many things I thought I had healed long ago.
However, after several nights alone with my thoughts, I started to realize I literally healed NOTHING. I had not moved on, accepted, acknowledged, or processed a damn thing. I was just distracted.
When you’re distracted, there’s not really time to think about what happened; so you convince yourself nothing happened. Or, sure it happened, but I’m going act like I don’t care enough to make it a thing. That way I don’t have to deal with the sloppy, messy, breakdown that follows soon after. I thought I found the cheat code to skip all of that. Like I somehow broke the system. That eventually enough time would pass, and this thing would be too old; too far in the past to feel any sort of emotion towards it.
“Just stay busy.” Was my motto.
“Don’t give that thing any time to be thought about.”
Most of my personal healing comes from family matters; childhood issues that progressively got worse with time.
Trying to heal from things said, things done, things taught.
My miraculous “healing” had to do with being home as little as possible, never having to talk to my family for long periods of time, locking myself in my room. I wasn’t dealing with my issues rather than avoiding them and replacing them with new distractions.
And once those distractions ended, I started to realize how I truly felt, and still feel. And while I thought I was doing okay, I wasn’t. So, back to square one we go.
To actually heal, you have to accept that it happened- that you were affected. All the emotions, feelings, flashbacks, all of it, they hit you at once. I used to think it was easier to pretend some things didn’t happen, but that’s impossible because they did. And because that said thing happened, it changed the entire course of my life.
Unhealed behaviours can screw you over in the long run. For example, I was never “praised” for my accomplishments. It was more like, “well that’s what you’re supposed to do. Why would I congratulate you?” I always knew my parents were proud of me. I was a smart kid. Reading and writing before the average person, top of all my classes, I was well-behaved, I was kind. I was perfect in a sense. The perfect child.
However, I grew up. And by that point, the smart, kind, well-behaved, over-achieving persona stuck. It was expected. And you don’t get praised for what’s expected.
I wanted so badly for someone to just say, “I see how hard you work. Great job.” Because school is hard. Working is hard. Life is hard.
I had expectations to live up to. And I didn’t. At least not in the way my family wanted me to.
They were disappointed in me.
“I worked hard.” I thought.
“Just not hard enough. Not hard enough for my family.”
I began to mentally burn myself out trying to do everything possible so someone, anyone, would make me feel validated in all I did. To earn back some sort of approval. To make them proud again. It’d been so long since I made someone proud.
My ex-boyfriend once told me he was proud of me. I cried. Because of a word. Because for so long, it felt like I didn’t deserve anyone to be proud of me. I was programmed from a young age to think this is what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to just do good things. I’m supposed to just naturally excel.
I could care less if someone validated me now. Validation is great, and it makes me feel good, but I don’t seek it anymore. I can function without it. Along this path of “healing”, I realized the only validation I need is from me.
If I’d healed from this sooner, I wouldn’t have to explain to my boyfriend why I broke down from a compliment. Hell, he could’ve ran for the hills. He could’ve thought, “Hmph. This girl has mommy and daddy issues. Let me not get involved with that.”
My point is, not healing can affect us, our relationships, and our outlook on life.
Healing starts from dealing with the situation, acknowledging it, feeling it, re-visiting it- and it hurts. But it is so so important to stay in tune with your emotions. Holding things in and ignoring them is not healing.
So, if you’re distracting yourself, stop it! Heal.
Healing is how you move on; how you grow; how you learn. When you distract yourself, you stay in the same place (maybe even get worse).
