What does healing actually mean to you?

[Songsofexperience]

I keep seeing threads about past hurt/abuse/ heartbreak resurfacing especially badly during this lockdown and over the past 12 months in general. Everyone wants to heal from past wounds, however it's struck me just now that I'm not sure what that even means! People say time is a 'healer' but if I think about certain events, they will feel as fresh as if they had happened yesterday. I don't think time will change that. I can try and not think about them anymore - but then am I just repressing feelings I should be dealing with instead? I'm wondering in fact what it is we should be aiming for when 'healing'. Is there such a thing as closure? How is it possible to reach a goal if you don't even know what it should look like?

I can only speak for myself but for me, healing is a continual process.

I separated from my ex husband 3 years ago following his infidelity and while I will never be fully recovered and feel nothing about him or the loss of our marriage and family, I am in a better place than I was 3, 2 or even 1 year ago.

I still feel sad when i think about what has happened but I rarely cry about it. I can have an amicable relationship with him for the sake of our children and know that he is with someone else (no longer the OW) without it making me sad or angry.

I am in a relationship with someone else and while I will never marry again or even possibly live with someone again (apart from my kids), I can say I'm happy, which recognising this isn't the life I'd imagined.

So that, for me is healing and it's ongoing. It involved counselling and lots of talking with friends and self-reflection and most importantly, time.

Heart break, trauma, etc. These are wounds on our soul. Healing means that the wound is healed, but the scar will always remain. If we spend too much time digging at an old scar I think we can turn it back into a wound. So healing is hot about ruminating on the old wound, it is living with the scar

Well said, Aubergine.

@KirstenBlest

Well said, Aubergine.

Thank you

In my head, healing is getting to the stage where you can look back at something that happened, and simply accept that it did - without the barrage of emotions that come with the thought when the wound is brand new.

After an abusive relationship that lasted 6 years I never thought I'd get to that stage. But I'm typing about it now and I don't feel anything. It doesn't make me want to cry. The worst it gets is thinking 'Yeah, he was fucking dick' but then I move on. He was the one with the problem, not me.

I'm a couple of years from a breakup.
It has been a very slow process. I'll never get over what happened, but I am coping with it better.

What hurt most of all was that someone could treat another sentient being like that. Humiliation, lies, treating someone like they were an idiot, violence, gaslighting, trying to make someone mentally ill.

I'm not sure how I managed to not end my life, other than I didn't want to hurt the people who really do love me.

MN helped a lot. Just by being somewhere I could tell someone how I felt, and knowing that shit things don't only happen to me (sorry, I know that's selfish).

What does healing mean to me? Getting from being in a million little bits to functioning as a human being again. Getting to the point were the heartbreak stops clouding everything to thinking I'm well rid.

healing to me is when days and weeks go by and i don't think of the person. when the knot of pain in my stomach is no longer gnawing at my insides all day long. when the sick feeling of never speaking to them again disappears. when i can sleep thru the night and not wake up because i'm thinking of them. when the thought of them causes no kind of emotions within me anymore.

I love this!!

When resentment is no longer the overriding emotion.

When you start to love yourself.

When you forgive your old self.

Hi OP, this book was recommended to me on MN and I think you might find it helpful. The author discusses ways to heal past trauma and those feelings of hurt and pain that resurface as you are describing.. it is based in science and not too “woo”

www.hilaryjacobshendel.com/itsnotalwaysdepressionbook

@AubergineDream

Heart break, trauma, etc. These are wounds on our soul. Healing means that the wound is healed, but the scar will always remain. If we spend too much time digging at an old scar I think we can turn it back into a wound. So healing is hot about ruminating on the old wound, it is living with the scar

That’s a good analogy but sometimes the original wound doesn’t heal - perhaps it was swept under the carpet or the hurt was denied at the time - and the scar needs to be poked at in order to open it up and let the healing take place.

Only OP knows which category she is in.

We don’t completely heal from profoundly painful experiences. Some experiences leave a scar. With the passing of time, other experiences filter in to our lives around the grief. The grief doesn’t go away, it stays with us until the end. It eventually just had lots of other stuff around it. Having said that, it is important for us to care for ourselves and to seek out ways to heal ourselves, so the word ‘healing’ is important. When we feel down, past scars surface and flood us with emotion unfortunately and that’s when we need to force ourselves to seek out distraction to get us over the flood.

Yes, I am talking about stuff that's very old and still hurts whenever I think of it. I swept it under the carpet as you say but had to deal with it in recent months. I don't want to make the same mistake again- ie. Repressing feelings but equally I'm desperate to move on as it's been quite enough!

@Songsofexperience

Yes, I am talking about stuff that's very old and still hurts whenever I think of it. I swept it under the carpet as you say but had to deal with it in recent months. I don't want to make the same mistake again- ie. Repressing feelings but equally I'm desperate to move on as it's been quite enough!

Do take a look at the book I linked to - at the level I understood it, her advice is to really open up to the feeling when it resurfaces. If it’s another person who put you down, (me and my dad!) it’s suggested that you imagine “you now” sweeping in and defending “you then.” Even say out loud what you wished you’d said then.

There’s a lot more to it and I’ve maybe made it sound a bit silly but it really helps me.

Very interesting thread with good insights! Keep 'em coming folks!