Breaking a cycle isn’t peaceful - it's often scary and painful.
Most people don't really heal, they collect healing experiences which keep the body and mind busy but nothing really changes because actual healing isn't a ceremony - it's more of a collapse. Comfort rots away and everything you’ve hidden behind disintegrates.
But society doesn't tell you that because its not sexy to sell. Who wants to sign up for something where side effects include rage, isolation, insomnia, night terrors, grief, brain fog, withdrawal symptoms, shaking, sweating and near-death experiences?
So, they package it prettier. They sell you spa treatments and inner peace, but peace doesn't come first, decay does.
The Dreaded Swamp.
Some of the pain that you are in right now isn’t even from a former wound. It's from losing who you were when you had it. The version of you that lived in that trauma had a role, but healing peels that version of you away, layer by layer. That's why it feels like grief - because it is.
The 'process' of healing can feel like you're lost in a horrible, dark swamp. It appears endless, you don't want to be there anymore. You're frustrated, but the only option is to keep going. That's how you get out of the swamp.
Though it still won't be easy, the tools you need to wade through the swamp are at your fingertips. You just need to know how to look.
We aren't in the Wizarding World.
It's not Voldemort - it's Suicide.
It doesn't really matter what stage you're at: pre-swamp, in-swamp, or post-swamp and learning to manage a new normal, it's all scary and exhausting, and not everyone survives.
Yet suicide isn't spoken about because its uncomfortable.
Suicide is very real.
The idea is uncomfortable. It's all uncomfortable.
So, let's get comfortable being uncomfortable and start talking about the difficult things.
