Healing Isn’t Pretty—It’s a Fight You Don’t Post About

They said healing would feel like peace. Like finally exhaling. Like warm baths and yoga mats and closing toxic doors with a graceful smile.

They lied.

Healing, as I experienced it, was raw. Ugly. Messy. It looked nothing like the gentle images on Pinterest boards or the soft affirmations spoken by women in calm voices over lavender fields on Instagram Reels. No one prepared me for what it actually feels like to rebuild yourself from the inside out.

It started when I left him.

To the outside world, we were fine. A little unstable maybe, but who isn’t? I had learned to wear the right makeup over bruises, both on my skin and in my soul. I had learned how to laugh on cue and pose for pictures with just enough sparkle in my eyes to convince others — and maybe myself — that it wasn’t that bad.

But it was. And I broke. Quietly, completely, and without ceremony.

The night I left, I didn't feel brave. I felt terrified. I didn’t feel empowered. I felt like a fraud, walking out the door with a garbage bag of clothes and a panic attack in my throat. That wasn’t peace. That wasn’t healing. That was survival.

The weeks that followed weren’t romantic either. I wasn’t journaling and meditating under moonlight. I was sleeping on a friend’s couch, crying so hard in the shower that I had to sit down. I was losing weight not because I was taking care of my body, but because anxiety made food taste like sand. I had panic attacks in grocery stores and flashbacks in the middle of work calls. I didn’t feel like a phoenix. I felt like ashes that forgot how to burn.

I started therapy — reluctantly, skeptically, because I wasn’t sure what I’d even say. But that first session? I sobbed like a child. My therapist didn’t hand me solutions. She handed me tissues and silence — and somehow, that was more healing than anything else. For once, someone let me fall apart without rushing me to “get better.”

That’s when I realized something they never tell you: healing is not linear. It’s not a steady climb to a glorious mountaintop. It’s jagged. Some days you feel free and alive. Other days, you’re on the bathroom floor, wondering if you made a mistake.

There were nights I wanted to go back. Just to feel something familiar. Just to not be alone. But I held on — sometimes barely, sometimes resentfully, but I held on.

I started to understand that healing meant looking in the mirror and facing the parts of myself I had ignored. The codependency. The people-pleasing. The way I confused pain with love. That wasn’t just hard — it was humiliating. I had to forgive myself for all the times I silenced my instincts. All the times I stayed too long. All the times I betrayed myself in the name of loyalty.

Healing looked like setting boundaries and feeling guilty about them. It looked like crying after saying no, and still holding the line. It looked like building a new life brick by shaky brick, with no applause, no milestone posts, no one really seeing the battle I fought daily just to stay whole.

But slowly — painfully — things changed.

I found an apartment. My own. Just a small studio, but it smelled like lavender and freedom. I started sleeping through the night without waking up in a cold sweat. I picked up books I used to love, started cooking again, called my mom more. Little things. Quiet victories.

And one day, I laughed. A real laugh. The kind that bubbles up from your chest without asking permission. And I realized: this is healing too.

Not the polished kind. Not the aesthetic kind. But the kind where your soul starts breathing again.

I still have bad days. There are still triggers, flashbacks, shame spirals. But I don’t drown in them anymore. I’ve learned to ride the waves instead of getting swept under.

Healing looks like trusting yourself again. Like saying, “I deserve better,” and meaning it. Like finally — after everything — choosing yourself without apology.

So no, healing isn’t pretty. It’s not always peaceful. It doesn’t come wrapped in self-help quotes or bath