Since it happened I know a lot of people locked in the common trouble of healing, I want to share some of my thoughts around that.
Most people today try to forget or distract themselves to avoid thinking or feeling something about some experience from the past. This is a huge misconception of healing! It’s the dumbest, most unrealistic thing anyone thinks to do. They claim, or the social media convinced them to think time heals everything. It does NOT. I’d say this is brainwashing by repetition. If you keep distracting yourself for years & years and just throw yourself into things, then for any reason this memory, this very experience will jump into your head & take control. And you won’t be able to handle it. You might start all over again with some process that is fundamentally wrong. It’s like picking the wrong of 2 ways & just keep walking. The very first decision was wrong & it won’t lead you to where you wanna be. It’s as simple as that. Time doesn’t heal anything unless you do the pre-work. That’s where the healing lies. Time is just a factor that assures you started walking towards your future. But guess what?! You carry your own mentality with you. If you carry a corrupted one in the first place, you will keep running in loops. Run anywhere & everywhere, you will always be there. Fix that & time is there to assure you did. It doesn’t fix nor helps you forget.
People today have access to a lot of distraction tools. “Social Media” takes the biggest share of that as the monster of distractors. They can keep scrolling & scrolling until they run out of mental power. And the day after that .. and the day after that.
That’s the less significant part of the problem. The disaster comes now. Those who are in their early 20s and below have a misplaced trust in those platforms. They take what they see & read there as credible depending on how many followers, how many views & how many likes those posts get! It doesn’t matter how those numbers came up or by whom, their subconscious will at least consider such content relatable & rush behind the herd. Then it becomes their reality given the amount of time they spend there comparing or absorbing content that in most cases is harmful. Double check the number of psychological disorders, depressions, anxiety, the sense of narcissisms, violence, divorces, general dissatisfaction & unhappiness among those generations today. They don’t take those platforms as they really are. They don’t seek advice from professionals in most cases. Influence my ass!!
This kind of distraction is addictive. .. and exactly like every other addiction problem, those who are hooked are gonna say. What! of course we have no addiction. We can withdraw anytime we want. Faking a sense of control that’s definitely not there. Denial is part of addiction, exactly like tobacco’s or nicotine’s. And the truth can be found in one fair & just question, can you stop using the platform, nicotine, tobacco or whatever for a couple of months & carry on with your life just normally!
So practicing this kind of distraction becomes a significant habit .. and after some time they become a weak damaged version of who they were. A vague uncertain image of themselves in the future. Of course the damage can go after even older people, but given the virality of those platforms during the past 10 years, people who where hatching their 20 had formed by that time most of their characteristics & ideas of the world .. or at least had the base for that.
And it’s not the social media itself, it’s the concept. You can keep yourself busy with gatherings, parties, whatever comes to mind. Some run to friends who deceive them with some sweet words, an illusion of comfort. They are just painkillers. The root cause remains unaddressed. The healing itself lies in taking the time to grief, to reflect, to think things through. To take the opportunity of the mess. Yes, struggle times come with opportunities too! You need to accept the fact that what happened has happened & now that experience is part of your life for good. No running from that. If you understand how to put that experience with all its attachments in its right place from your life, that’s the key. Understanding the reasons & consequences of your decision gives your clarity, perspective. Feeling sad, down, rock bottom for some time while being honest with yourself is much better than deceiving yourself into something that is unachievable while enjoying temporary comfort, a fragile one.
It’s definitely not a piece of cake .. and it’s emotionally tiring depending on how personal the experience was & how strongly you were attached to it. It could mean disrupting your energy, your daily habits, your usual passion & enthusiasm towards things. It It could make you question things, affect your peace of mind of course. It only helps understanding that those things are part of the process. You need to let things run their course and don’t turn a blind eye to the whole thing. It’s important too not to pressure yourself into quick & false recovery, cause quick means fragile too.
I’m not a psychiatrist but this role was created out of common logic, studying people & some psychological facts. It’s no rocket science to see how many people nowadays are following the same approach. A LOT are just walking dead, carrying their heavy weights from the past .. another accurate word would be dragging them. And it doesn’t just go away while they have no idea they are holding very strongly to that weight blaming time or everyone else for it. They live half experiences, half feelings (if any), half happiness .. and half life!
Grief is a crucial, essential part of the healing process. The feeling of discomfort. The realization & understanding what happened & what went wrong. The reflection in a healthy way. Reaching out for honest advice is not a bad idea .. on one condition you be honest telling the story. If you polish it in order to hear what you wanna hear, congratulations you’ve just fooled yourself! When those things fall into place, then things start to shine again. Well at least you have put things into perspective & want to live a full life again, including the risk of having other setbacks! But hey that’s part of life, part of us as humans, part of being on earth not heaven. Running is never an answer. Dwelling is not the answer too. Instead, taking some time to yourself without distractions to be able to put things into place, reset your mind & soul to a good state is the only way to go. Well in my humble opinion.