Healing Is Not A Competition

Healing is not a competition in any way, shape or form. You do not need to be in any hurry because someone else who survived the same trauma as you has healed faster than you. Your trauma journey is individual to you. Even if it takes you four hours, four months, four years longer than the next person who has survived to recover, you are not worse at surviving than them. The idea that trauma is a collective healing process and there is only one defined system for healing is where the problem lies.

The issue is, no two car accident survivors heal the same way. No two assault victims heal the same way. Your brain, your beautiful, complex brain processes each experience differently. Do you understand how marvelous and unique that is? It means that every experience you have ever had has been dealt with in an entirely different way than the other 8 billion people on the planet. The idea that whilst two people can be similar, no two people are the same.

This is why your journey from trauma to healing is an individual one. It cannot be compared to anyone else’s nor how fast or how slowly they are comparing to you. This idea of “Well this person got over it so quickly, so should I.” is a way of forcing your brain into an unnecessary competition which will only cause undue repressed emotions that will come back to haunt you at a later date.

Grieving and healing, these are two things that should not be hurried. They should be felt, they should be assessed to a time scale individual to you. So please, stop judging yourself by anyone else’s journey. Assess yourself by your own journey and whats it asks of you, create your own guidelines for your healing. Remember, whilst the destination may be the same, healing is never the same for two people and never will be.