Some of us learned the hard way that pain doesn’t disappear just because you stop talking about it.
I didn’t learn this in theory. I learned it by living inside my body when it wasn’t safe to look away. So I learned to stay. To feel. To name what was happening so it wouldn’t rot inside me. Over time, pain became something I learned how to listen to, not because I wanted to, but because avoidance can destroy you from deep within. So when something hurts now, I don’t know how to pretend it didn’t happen. I need to understand it. I need to speak it out loud so it can settle… it’s awareness. When I’m asked to “just move on,” my body doesn’t feel peace. It feels abandoned. When I name what happened, I’m not trying to fight, I’m trying to stay connected to myself. Avoidance may calm the surface, but it doesn’t repair the rupture underneath, and when something isn’t repaired, it doesn’t disappear. It comes back later to visit as distance, resentment, fear, or withdrawal. I need to be allowed to exist without being minimized or rushed, because I’ve already lived what happens when pain is swallowed instead of integrated.
I know the cost of that.
