Sharing – Healed is a Myth and Marketing Tool

Todd raises an interesting point, if you can get past the rather direct title.

I know this is a topic I’ve written about previously, because I think many survivors have an incorrect definition of “healed.”

They don’t consider themselves healed until they are restored to the person they were before the abuse. As I said last year about defining “healed” for yourself:

This is why I look for the definition when I read anything about being fully healed. What does being healed mean to you? Is your definition possible? A definition that includes the abuse having zero impact on who you are today? Because that’s not realistic. But it also doesn’t mean you can’t go on to have a healed life while acknowledging that it is still part of who you are.

https://toddbaratz.substack.com/p/healed-is-a-myth-and-marketing-tool

Todd makes a valid point about there not being a “cure”:

Ask yourself better questions: not “When will I be healed?” but “What would make today 5% calmer?” Not “How do I never feel this again?” but “How do I meet this feeling without abandoning myself?” Not “How do I get over it?” but “How do I carry it well?”

So many survivors want the answer to that first question. They want to know when this will be over and done with, but that’s not realistic. It would be like me asking when I will be “healed” from diabetes. I won’t be. My disease is something that is part of me that I have to manage. I take medicine, I watch what I eat, I don’t drink, etc. That’s not going to end. I fully understand that there is no future version of me where I don’t have to do any of those things.

Similarly, there is no future version of me that isn’t a survivor of child abuse. It happened. There is no cure I can buy that will create a version of me where I didn’t have that experience and be shaped by it. That’s not to say that I cannot have a great life, but I will always have a life impacted by those events.

I do consider myself very much healed from my abuse, but make no mistake, that does not mean that it isn’t part of me every day. It took time and work to get there. Many people promise that they can heal you without it, and I would be extremely wary of them.