Do you really ever heal from past hurts?

I got to thinking about the fact that we have all had things in our lives that have hurt us…whether physically, mentally, emotionally… but do we ever truly heal from those hurts or do we just learn a new way of life? Do we put up our emotional walls so we don’t get hurt in that way again? Is that truly healing?

For me, emotionally disconnecting doesn’t actually allow me to heal. It allows me to conceal whatever that hurt was. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. “As long as I don’t care about this anymore, it can’t hurt me.” Eventually the hurt lessens and doesn’t become a daily thought. I swept all of those “little” hurts under the rug and pretended like the rug was still laying flat on the floor. Little did I know that it would lead me down a dark path in the future. Little did I know that all of those hurts would start to make the rug get all bunched up and bumpy.

Years…decades…after some of these events happened in my life, some of them are coming to the forefront of my mind again (thanks to therapy)… I can still recall the pain of them as if they happened yesterday. I can still feel my chest get tight and my eyes begin to water.

Wait…I thought I had “healed” from those moments. Is it possible that I just never dealt with them?

• family member killed in a car crash
• loved ones dying
• watching a friend almost kill himself with bad decisions
• heartbreak
• bad choices on my part
• rape
• lying
• friendships dissolving
• failed results
• impossible expectations
• suicidal tendencies

If I never truly healed those hurts (and countless more)… is that why now I have fears that seem irrational to others that I can’t seem to let go of? Have these bumps under the rug that I have continued to sweep under there become a mountain in front of me now as I long to imagine what it would be like if the rug would lay flat again? The way I dealt with those things – big and small – are they the reason that I wonder if I’m loveable? The reason I feel unworthy? The reason that I feel unseen and unheard? Is that why I fear being left but crave being alone?

I’m scared to pull back the edges of that rug. I’m scared of the feelings that might accompany the issues. But… how else can I heal?