“You Are Healed,” He Said, But I Wasn’t Even Close

My therapist looked me in the eye after just a few sessions and said, “You’re healed. I healed you.” And for a split second, I believed him. I wanted to. Because how beautiful would that have been?
To be done.
To walk out of that room lighter, cleaner, free.
To have finally crossed some invisible finish line of pain.

But something inside me… flinched. Not out of skepticism, but out of confusion. Because if I was healed, why did I still feel like I wasn't?

Maybe the surface looked better. Yes, I was talking more. Yes, I could name some of the pain. Yes, I sounded like someone who “got it.” I knew the right words. I had insight. I could intellectualize my trauma like a seasoned pro.

But that’s all it was, surface-level clarity. Performance.
I knew how to give him what he wanted to hear.
I knew how to look well before I was well.

And he mistook that for healing. He mistook my ability to function as proof that the wounds beneath had stopped bleeding.

After those sessions ended, everything started to fall apart. Not dramatically, not like a breakdown...but slowly, in layers. Stuff I didn’t even know was in me began to rise.
Old memories.
Buried emotions.
A tidal wave of grief and confusion and fear I had no idea how to process.

I wasn’t healed. I was just getting started. And I kept thinking…
If he said I’m fine, why do I feel worse?
Why do I feel so alone in this mess that no one seems to see?

My therapist made a mistake. Yes, I know that now, and I can acknowledge it.

He saw what was on the surface and assumed it was the whole story. Or maybe he was so results-oriented that he didn't even notice it was just surface-level. He healed what was presenting: the obvious.

But he didn’t ask about the silence underneath. The numbness.
The parts of me that had never learned how to feel.

I didn’t even have language for those parts yet. I didn’t know how to say, “I don’t think I’ve ever really been emotionally alive.”
“I don’t know how to access what’s real for me.”
“I’ve built my entire life around appearing okay.”

He treated the symptoms. He didn’t see the disconnection I was drowning in. And maybe I couldn’t have shown him. Maybe I didn’t know how. But he didn’t look deeper. And I paid for that.

I felt like I was out in the middle of the ocean, no map, no land in sight, just this vast, endless ache. At first, I did what I’d always done: I ignored the parts of me that were starting to rise. The ones that felt too big, too loud, too much. But they didn’t go away. They came back as reactions I couldn’t explain. As fear. As anger. As needs I didn’t know how to name. As detachment that made me feel like a ghost in my own life.

It was exhausting, as if I were draining away and no one could see it.

And one day, I just stopped fighting it. I stopped swimming against the current and let it pull me. I laid back and let it take me deeper. I let myself drift. Because maybe the only way out was through. So I started paying attention to my own thoughts and reactions to understand them.

I began trying things like CBT, journaling, nervous system regulation, somatic work, inner child healing, coaching. Not because I was on some perfect self-help path. But because I didn’t want to stay stuck in the same pattern:

Act okay → Get praised → Still feel empty → Blame myself.

And slowly, I realized something: Healing isn’t just about naming the pain. It’s about learning how to feel again, without shame, without rushing.

It’s about knowing when you're in freeze and not shaming yourself for it.
It's about noticing when you're talking about your pain instead of letting yourself feel it.
It's about making space for the parts that aren't “productive” or “coachable”.

What no one tells you is that when the deeper stuff finally surfaces, it doesn’t come politely. It doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It doesn’t arrive with insight and clarity and neat language.

It comes like grief without a face. Like panic without a story. Like emptiness so wide you start wondering if this is who you’ve always been underneath the coping. And that’s when being told “you’re healed” becomes dangerous. Because you start thinking the pain means you’re failing. That something is wrong with you. That you broke the healing.

But the truth is uglier and harder to accept: nothing was healed yet. It was just finally disturbed. I wasn’t regressing. I was touching depth for the first time in my life. And I had no map.
No tools.
No one sitting across from me saying, “This is what happens when the nervous system finally stops performing.”

So I white-knuckled it.
I judged myself.
I tried to think my way out of feelings that didn’t live in thought.
I tried to “do healing right” like there was a gold star waiting at the end.

And there isn’t. There’s just you. Sitting in the rubble of what you thought was fixed. Realizing how much of your life was built on staying shallow enough to survive.

That’s the part I wish someone had told me.
That depth feels like danger at first.
That numbness feels safer than truth.
That insight without embodiment is just another disguise.

Healing didn’t break me open because it was working. It broke me open because it finally stopped lying.

And now?
Now I know that anyone who rushes healing is afraid of depth. That anyone who calls insight “done” has never stayed long enough to feel what lives underneath words.

I’m not healed.
I’m awake.
And some days, that feels scary. Some days, it feels like the bravest thing I’ve ever survived.

This isn’t a success story. It’s an initiation. And if you’re in the place where everything feels worse instead of better, where the ground you thought was solid is gone, you’re not broken.
You’re not behind.
You’re not doing it wrong.

You’re just finally there.

I won’t confuse performance with peace.
I won’t assume that progress on paper means healing in my body.
I won’t stop asking, “What else is underneath this?”
I won’t skip the emotional depth work, even if it’s uncomfortable or slow.

And most of all, I won’t rush someone else’s process the way mine was rushed.

Because healing isn’t linear. It’s not a checklist. It’s not something that happens in five sessions or ten. It’s a relationship with yourself, with your pain, with your capacity to be present.

If someone ever told you that you were healed before you felt ready, or
if you’ve ever been praised for being “resilient” when all you felt was numb, or
if you’ve ever walked out of therapy feeling like something was missing...
You’re not alone. And you’re not broken.

You’re just deeper than they realized. More layered than what they could see.

And now?
You get to do it differently.

You get to stay with it.
Ask harder questions.
Go beneath the noise and find what’s actually real.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog post. If you'd like to explore it more deeply, let's talk in a free 30-minute session.