Heal

"Pretending to be a savage won't heal that hole in your heart baby"

Heal.

But what does healing look like?

To me? Healing is going through different stages. Bleeding, pain, scabs, sometimes you pick the scabs then finally a scar. A scar that may fade with time or lasts forever. Other times, healing requires amputation but your brain never forgets the amputated limb. Phantom pains.  

Why do we expect different when it comes to emotional healing? Why do we gaslight ourselves and each other?

Often after going through a separation or divorce, we are expected to be ok because we should forgive and forget. No one wants to be around ‘bitter’ people they say. Besides when you forgive and forget then you give God and others space to ‘repay’ the one who caused you pain. So what happens is that we do not really heal, because we do not allow ourselves time to bleed, we deny the pain and we try to forget using different things, substance abuse, religion and different kinds of addiction. And because all will fail, we now pretend to be savages. Nothing or no one can hurt us, we have no feelings. When what we are doing is hurting ourselves and becoming impossible to live with or be around.

Our brain never forgets. Pain is not a sin and many times getting hurt is not our fault. It has happened. You are in pain. Acknowledge it. Scream and cry. Feel the pain. Miss the amputated limb. But it is ludicrous to want to pretend that trauma is not life-changing.

I have been accused on many occasions of being angry. What shocks me is that people are uncomfortable with my displeasure about certain things in my life. Listen, in my case I have been denied the opportunity to be the type of mother I always wanted to be. I wanted to be the soft mum who gave lots of hugs and had the patience to listen to meaningless stories about ants and worms. Instead, I have to be the mother that goes hunting, comes back so tired and frustrated, find time to cook the loot and then gives hurried hugs and struggles with patience. Why would anyone think I am going to be happy about it? I am not on drugs.

The anger is subsiding as I go through my healing journey. I am not happy about it and no one will guilt me into ‘forgetting’ so they can feel comfortable. Sometimes I am pissed as hell. Not as often as I used to be because things change as the days go by, but I have a scar that I acknowledge. I find that society is very uncomfortable with women expressing their pain or even acknowledging it. Marriage is about forgiveness they say. Do not bring up what he did. Men like happiness and peace. (Be his peace but not at your expense, it is in my book) As if you enjoy turmoil.

I encourage you to shout when you are in pain, it is part of the healing. Zora Neale Hurston said 'If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.' How many times have you seen in a woman’s eulogy how she was a good woman who kept giving and forgiving? Yet she is the one dead from a stroke, high blood pressure or heart problems?

So even as we learn how to enjoy a relationship with an African man, heal. And healing is not pretending you do not care. You care. Healing is not pretending you do not need someone, we all need people. 

Healing is allowing yourself to be human. 

Healing is feeling pain. 

Healing is messy.

Healing is remembering 20 years from now. 

Healing is grieving.

Healing is not something you will do by saying, ‘I forgive and forget”. 

Healing is being vulnerable. 

Healing is loud. 

Healing is forever. 

Healing is every day.

Heal.