Healing is Messy
I have dedicated more of my life to healing in the past year than ever before, and I have learned a lot about the process. As I reflect on the experiences that have shaped this past year, I come to understand that I have finally been faced with the deepest wound of all: abandonment.
The first time my body and mind experienced this was likely at birth when I was separated from my mom because I wasn’t feeding in the first few days. Sometime after, when my twin and I were taken home, my mother was taken away by a psychiatrist under a section (the type I don’t know). Fast forward another five years, and I was separated again from my mom, who had attempted suicide and was taken away. At that time, I was removed from home and school and taken ninety miles north to live with my maternal grandma for eight months.
This pattern of abandonment shaped my entire childhood, as I often visited the local orphanage and fought daily for my mum’s attention when men, partying, and alcohol dominated her life. I also lost contact with my father for twenty-six years, starting at age twelve, never being told why he suddenly disappeared.
Life has a way of moving forward regardless, and sometimes we don’t have the time to process events and experiences. Decades can pass before we finally realize that the wounds we carry are not truly healed; we’ve only covered them up. The plasters and bandages I used served as my distraction. I worked hard, always studied for something—starting after school with my A levels (I didn’t have a clear purpose for them), then going on to my Diploma in Adult Nursing, and four years later, earning a degree in community nursing and community nurse prescribing.
I then diverted my attention to building my family. Already raising my son (now twenty-eight), I met, married, and very quickly had two babies, one after the other. No sooner had the dust settled with these arrivals, I took a promotion at work, then went on to spend six years at university again. I started with Minor Illness degree module at York University, 2018, Non-Medical Independent Prescribing at Hull University, 2019, a Pediatric course in London, 2020, and then finally, the Master’s in Advanced Practice between 2021 and 2024.
I never paused during these years to reflect on the pace of life I chose. I didn’t know any different. I have always been driven, focused, and determined. I have never allowed myself stillness or time to reflect. This last twelve months, even though I continue to work full time and share the responsibility of raising my family with my husband, I have opened my senses and started to accept the desperate need to heal.
It’s like the universe finally got tired of me suppressing the pain and sent the biggest abandonment my way, forcing me to face the deep, festering wound that has overshadowed my identity all my life. I grew up with three other witnesses, and we all shared the experience, albeit from different perspectives. Suddenly, through a complex chain of events and the uncovering of a buried family abuse, I lost those family members. No longer joined in a shared survival story, I was on my own.
This was the first step in my healing journey. I had nobody but myself to confront the wounds I had neglected. Now they were throbbing under a worn, saturated dressing, oozing with all the uncried tears and unheard screams. My body and mind feel broken because I have allowed the pain to surface. Healing is not pretty. It is not a serene sunset, with a figure in meditation pose, listening to flutes. Healing is not linear either. So many times, with the help of therapy, reading, and self-care, I took two steps forward only to wake up with a suffocating cloud of raw panic.
I have had to chant, shake, count my exhalation, hum as the air expires, listen to meditation music, and sometimes, sit and cry. I have combined somatic work with journaling (now!), exercise, even when my legs have felt like lead weights. I have sat with my sadness, felt the weight of my fear, been confused about how my body has felt, and lost the sense of who I am.
There are no guarantees with healing. You don’t start a course; the way you do with antibiotics for a chest infection, where you are confident that the last day of the tablets will lead to full recovery. The uncertainty is another reason for the fear to grow. It feels like I am constantly fighting a spreading fire. I am using every resource at my disposal, and just when the flames go out, another fire ignites and consumes all my oxygen supply.
Healing is about being. For me, it is about sitting in the emotion, and feeling it. For decades, I distracted my mind and body, making sure I was constantly occupied, and when I wasn’t working, I was partying hard to numb my brain. But the wounds were still there, in my dreams, in my coping mechanisms, in the choices I made, in the boundaries I failed to build for myself.
We cannot hide from our pain. Time permits distraction for so long, but eventually, we either face up to and tear the plaster off, or let the wound disable us and fracture our sense of self forever. I am right in the middle of healing. I am not recovered. I may never fully recover, having been diagnosed with complex PTSD. However, I am developing new behaviours and thought patterns every day. I am working on and challenging my core beliefs and values in an attempt to invest in self-love.
If you are starting the journey of healing, or want to take the first steps and have fear or uncertainty, have a look at some of my other blogs, and reach out to your NHS GP or 111 for support. Your local services will also have a crisis team if you feel like you need to speak to someone more urgently. There are also services like MIND and Samaritans that could help you.
