Healing Is the Hardest Part

I always thought that my trauma was the worst to deal with but it turns out it was the healing. I survived my trauma. It ended—in a physical sense. But if left me with scars and nightmares. I had a lot of pieces I had to pick up. Healing has been a different story. 

You have to be ready. And that can take years. It took me fourteen years. When it came back to haunt me, I finally had to look it in the eye and face it head-on. But honestly, I don't think I was ready before this time in my life. I think to myself now, "oh, but I am healing and working through it. What was I waiting for?” I was waiting for when I was ready. 

You have to be willing. Healing is a lot of work. You have to be willing to put in the work. From reading books, meditation, talking to someone, and even facing fears of telling loved ones. Breaking the pact you made with yourself to keep it a secret forever. People are a lot more supportive than we think they will be. But healing forces you to break those rules you made with yourself or someone made for you. It forces you to break the silence.

Healing is hard. If you ask me, it is the hardest part. 

You have to accept it. One of the hardest parts of healing for me was accepting that it happened to me. Accepting that it was real. Accepting that I went through this. I didn't want to believe it happened to me. It was easier to push it into the back of my mind and think it happened to somebody else. It was a hard reality but a necessary one. 

You have to forgive. I honestly held (and still do sometimes) a lot of anger. Anger at the people who let me down, anger at the fact that it happened to me, just angry. In healing, you don't have to forgive their actions, but you need to forgive yourself. You need to accept that you did what you could to survive and that it wasn't your fault.

You have to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable is not something survivors want to do after what we have gone through. But by making myself vulnerable in the healing process, I started feeling powerful at the same time. It turned out to be one of the most important steps for me. 

You have to believe. You have to believe that there is more on the other side. More out there. You have to believe that you can make it through. Have hope. Stay positive. Mindset for me is huge. It keeps me going. 

You have to remember. You have to remember it is not your fault and it never was. You have to remember that your trauma does not define you, it is your resilience that made you who you are. You have to remember that there is good in the world. It is easy to continue to see bad everywhere in the world, but if we don't learn how to find the good in things or people again, we will miss out on so much and we worked so hard to get to this point in the first place. 

You have to let go. You have to let go of who you were before. You can find normalcy again, a routine, and regain parts of who you are. But you have to let go of the fact that nothing will ever be as it was before. You need to spend the time to create a new normal and to accept that normal. It takes time, it is hard, and it is scary. But it is essential. 

You have to know you are never alone. Some days are really hard. Some days you just need to have a bad day. Some days you need to grieve that you can never get certain parts of yourself back. And that is OK. It is normal. Not every day can be a good day. But most of them can. 

Healing is hard. If you ask me, it is the hardest part.