Healing Isn’t Linear

I used to think healing meant I was supposed to get over it. That at some point, I’d wake up and never feel the pain again. That if I stopped talking about it, stopped feeling it, stopped remembering it, that meant I had healed.

But healing doesn’t work that way.

It’s not a straight path or a final destination. It’s a layered, spiraling, ongoing process. And if I’m honest, I didn’t realize that until I broke in a way I couldn’t ignore anymore.

I remember lying on my bedroom floor, completely depleted. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, empty. That moment wasn’t just painful… it was revealing. Because what hit me even harder than the breakdown itself was the silence around me. I had nobody. No one to sit in that dark place with me. No one to hold space for the weight I had carried for far too long.

And it was in that lowest place that everything started to shift.

Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I started asking why. Why do I keep choosing men who hurt me? Why is it always the same cycle? Why do I keep losing pieces of myself in relationships that leave me feeling discarded and empty?

It wasn’t just one person who broke me. It was years of patterns, pain, and unprocessed trauma that I thought I had left behind simply because I never talked about it. But pushing it down didn’t heal me. It just buried me underneath it.

And when I finally allowed myself to feel, to sit with the pain instead of avoiding it, that’s when the truth came in.

Healing wasn’t something I could finish. It wasn’t a box I could check off. It was something I had to live through, day by day.

Moment by moment.

And so I stopped asking, “When will this end?”

Without even realizing it, I started accepting that healing would be a part of my life. Not as a curse, but as a teacher. A mirror. A guide.

It’s messy. It still is. And there are parts of me that will probably always feel raw if I revisit them. But I don’t fear those feelings anymore. I let them in, and I’ve learned how to get myself back to solid ground. Because the truth is, minimizing my emotions never made them disappear. Feeling them, understanding them, and honoring them is what allowed me to move through them.

That’s the shift that changed everything.

I don’t pretend I’m okay when I’m not anymore. I don’t fake the smile just to appear strong. I’ve learned to be okay with not being okay, and that doesn’t make me negative or broken. It makes me real. It makes me human.

And I’m finally, wholeheartedly happy. Not because everything in my life is perfect, but because I’m grateful for what I do have. I’m grateful to be alive. I’m grateful for my children and their health. I’m grateful that I finally know how to love myself fully and mean it.

Now when I catch myself falling into old habits—overthinking, shrinking, getting overwhelmed—I don’t spiral. I catch it. I bring myself back. Because I’m in control now. I lead myself through it.

That’s how I know I’m healing.

Not because the pain is gone, but because it no longer owns me.

-Lindsay-Michele