Healing and not healing
(Nimue)
I wrote recently about forgiveness, raising the issue of what happens when people refuse to try and heal. Of course not everything can be healed, and not everything should be. We don’t really heal some griefs – not in the sense of moving on from them. Some losses are too great to ever let go of. What we have to do with those is figure out how to carry them.
Not all physical problems can be healed. It’s important to be kind to ourselves, and to others about things that can’t be fixed. Too many people blame and shame those who are stuck with limited options, as though the only real problems are not trying hard enough, or making a fuss. I think this has a protective function – if you can believe that, then you can also believe there’s no way those things could happen to you. It’s an unkind illusion and best avoided.
Grief isn’t just a bereavement issue. Illness and injury can bring a lot of grief around the life lost, and the future that will not now be as we hoped. Loss of jobs, of homes, of communities and hopes also creates profound grief. The climate crisis will bring more of this, and we are in no way ready for it.
Grief can also be a part of what we’re left with after traumatic experiences and can actually be helpful. In that context. Both grief and rage will help you reassert your own boundaries and personhood.
The things we most need to work on healing are the ones that give us unhelpful coping mechanisms. Life wounds all of us, and healing is an ongoing issue for everyone. Finding ways to stay hopeful and able to keep trying is really important. Healing is how we protect ourselves from bitterness, apathy and belief in our own powerlessness. These are huge and complex topics that I will keep dipping into as I learn more.
We learn things that get us through specific situations but that are not good rules to live by. I learned to cry silently, and to pretend to be ok when I wasn’t (amongst other things). These were necessary skills for toxic situations. In spaces where I am safe and cared about, they make me difficult to deal with and deny me comfort that would otherwise be readily available. Those are out of date set of coping mechanisms that I have been working to change.
It isn’t always easy spotting a coping mechanism that no longer works for you. However, in terms of psychological healing, these are well worth looking for, as getting to grips with them helps us all move on. Supporting people when you see them struggling with these is also a good choice. From the outside, simply affirming that the other person is safe and welcome can help give them the space to dismantle limiting coping mechanisms.
