This Is What Healing Really Looks Like (Hint: It’s Ugly)

A true story of broken pieces, silent battles, and the slow, messy climb back to myself.

I wish I could tell you that healing looks like yoga mats, green smoothies, and motivational quotes on pastel backgrounds.

But that’s not how it happened for me.

Healing, for me, looked like unwashed dishes piling in the sink. It looked like me sleeping on the couch for three weeks because the bed reminded me too much of who I used to be. It looked like ignoring calls from people who cared because I didn’t know how to tell them, I’m not okay without falling apart mid-sentence.

It started with the breakup, but it was never just about the breakup.

When he left, something cracked open in me. At first, I thought it was just heartbreak. But as days turned into weeks, I realized I had been holding myself together with duct tape and denial for years. His absence didn’t break me. It just removed the distraction that had been keeping my pain on mute.

What followed wasn’t a beautiful transformation. It was survival in slow motion.

There were nights I sat on the bathroom floor in silence, not crying—just staring. Sometimes for hours. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t know how to keep living like this. I felt like a guest in my own body. Everything hurt, even existing.

One day, I tried to be “productive.” I put on makeup, played upbeat music, and told myself I’d go out. I made it to the front door before I sat down in the hallway and cried for 40 minutes because I felt like a fraud in my own skin. The world moved too fast. I was still trying to remember how to breathe.

Healing came in strange, quiet moments. The day I folded my laundry without crying. The first time I laughed at a meme again. The morning I opened the window and let the sunlight hit my face—and it didn’t feel like a personal attack.

That’s the thing no one tells you: healing doesn’t feel good at first. It feels like grieving. Grieving not just the person or thing you lost, but the version of you that believed everything would turn out differently. You start to realize how many parts of yourself you abandoned just to keep peace, to avoid being alone, to be loved.

Some days, I felt strong. Other days, I spiraled. I stopped measuring progress by how "happy" I was and started measuring it by how honest I could be with myself. Could I sit with my sadness without running from it? Could I feel anger without judging myself for it? That was the real work.

There was no moment where I suddenly became "healed." No glowing skin, no sunrise epiphany. What happened instead was much quieter. One day, I realized I didn’t check his Instagram anymore. I walked past our old café without feeling like someone had kicked me in the ribs. I looked in the mirror and didn’t flinch at the person staring back.

Healing, I’ve learned, is less about fixing and more about remembering. Remembering who you were before the world told you who to be. Remembering that you are not the worst thing that ever happened to you. Remembering that broken doesn’t mean beyond repair—it means you’re ready for reconstruction.

And reconstruction is messy.

There were tears in therapy, awkward journal entries, and text messages I typed and deleted a hundred times. There were relapses into old habits, moments of self-sabotage, and nights I begged the universe for a shortcut.

But through it all, there was something deeper growing: self-compassion.

I stopped asking, Why am I like this? and started asking, What does this feeling need from me right now? I began to treat myself like someone I was responsible for loving.

That was the hardest part—learning to stay, even when I wanted to run. Especially from myself.

Today, I’m not completely healed. I still have hard days. I still flinch when certain songs play. I still carry scars. But now, I carry them with grace.

Because I know what I’ve been through.

Because I know healing isn’t pretty. It’s not a straight line or a polished Instagram reel. It’s messy and non-linear and deeply human.

And if that’s what healing looks like—then I guess I’m finally starting to look like myself again.