The Lie of Soft Healing
We discuss healing as though it were something beautiful. As it does with sunsets, candles and well-written journal pages. However, in reality, recovery is not often tender. It is not the serene montage that people share on the internet; it is agitated, unappreciative, and even unseen. It does not come in the form of soothing music or positive affirmations; it comes in the form of sleepless nights, too loud silence, and unwanted lessons. Healing is not about peace, but it is about disturbance. It rips you apart so that you can put it back together in a different way, and that business, in itself, is not romantic. It’s exhausting. It exists by the mask of progress.
When Progress Feels Like Loss
No one tells you that healing often feels like losing parts of yourself. You stop reacting to certain things, stop chasing certain people, and that detachment doesn’t feel empowering; it feels empty. Growth implies that you cannot fit into the places that were considered home. It is the pain of growing up to be someone your past does not know. The idea of progress is being sold to us as a pure uphill climb, when in fact it is a mourning process, losing your old habits, your illusions, even your comfort. It is not the movie that we so much admire; it is being in your own mess, and not falling once more. Healing is knowing that it is not possible to go back, although a part of you still wishes you could.
The Aesthetics of Recovery
We have also been conditioned to aestheticise self-improvement therapy quotes, detox plans, and productivity checklists. However, that form of curing is more of an act, not a cure. Real healing does not always take photographs well. It is crying in the bathroom, not wanting to see anyone who will remind you of your past, reading the same message that you swore to yourself that you would not. It is not elegant and it does not want applause. The internet has idealised self-care to such a degree that we desire beauty in our suffering - but development is indifferent to gracefulness. It is simply concerned about existence. The ugly part of getting better is that no one cheers you when you finally begin to pick yourself up. Most people won’t even notice.
The Loneliness of Getting Better
Healing isolates you. The bigger you become, the less people know about you. You no longer find it comfortable to cling to drama, gossip, chaos, and suddenly, silence becomes liberating and reproving. Healing teaches limits, boundaries from distance. You get to know that peace is not exciting and excitement is not always healthy. Getting better is a trial of being lonely - do you love yourself enough not to clap when no one cheers you when you quietly win? It is not the isolation of being unloved; it is the isolation of being conscious in a world that is obsessed with sound. Healing causes you to be unseen by certain individuals, particularly the ones who were fond of the fractured side of you.
Healing as Work, Not Aesthetic
Healing is not an awakening; it’s work. It’s rewriting the way you think, retraining how you react, confronting the parts of yourself that sabotage peace. It’s uncomfortable accountability, the kind where you realise not everyone who hurt you was a villain, and not every heartbreak was unfair. True healing doesn’t glorify pain; it studies it, questions it, and learns from it. It doesn’t mean forgiving everything; it means choosing not to carry it anymore. It’s learning that peace isn’t something you find; it’s something you build, brick by brick, in the ruins of everything you once escaped into.
The Quiet Victory
Improving does not necessarily feel good. On certain days, healing resembles boredom, detachment, or indifference. It is that silent, unmarked tranquillity which freedom really is. The unattractive nature of healing is that it is not triumphant, but rather it is regular. It is getting up in the morning and finding that the thing that broke you does not break you any more. No clapping, no revelation, simple disengagement. The very nature of healing is not becoming new, but becoming whole. And the whole appears seldom as we thought. It’s not romantic, but it’s real. It is not beautiful, but it is sincere. And perhaps that is the loveliest thing of all.