Anatomy

Anatomy of an un Healed Soul

For a while, I thought I was getting better. I felt this fragile hope, a small flicker of light that maybe, just maybe, I was on the mend. People say time heals all wounds, that you just have to wait it out, that things will get better if you give them space to breathe. And at first, I believed them. I tried to convince myself that every passing day was another layer of healing, that I was stitching myself back together piece by piece.

But lately, I've come to realize that healing isn't what they promised. It doesn't feel like peace. It doesn't feel like closure. It feels more like taking all the broken pieces and hiding them away, covering them with thin layers of time until they're buried deep enough that you almost forget they're there. Almost.

I thought I was moving on. I thought I'd finally made it past the worst of it. But time didn't make the pain go away—it just dulled the edges, made it easier to ignore, like shoving clutter into a closet and pretending it's clean. But that closet is full. It's so full I can't keep the door shut anymore. 

Every little thing threatens to knock it open and spill out everything I've worked so hard to hide.

People say healing is linear, that you have to be patient, that setbacks are normal. But no one warns you about the hollow feeling that creeps in when you realize that maybe you're not healing at all. Maybe you're just pretending. It's like putting a bandage over a wound that never really closes, ignoring it until it festers and spreads, becoming a part of you so you don't even remember where it started.

I wanted so badly to believe in healing. I wanted to believe that time could save me, that I'd reach a point where I could look back on all this and feel like it was behind me. But all I feel now is betrayed, as if time and I had an agreement, and it's broken it. All it did was sweep the pain into dark corners, burying it where I couldn't see it, only for it to resurface the moment I thought I could breathe again.

It's cruel, really, the way everyone talks about healing as if it's some destination you reach, a place you can stand on solid ground and say, "I've made it." But healing feels more like a mirage, something that only looks real from a distance. The closer you get, the more it slips away, leaving you stranded in the same emptiness you started with.

And the worst part? The worst part is that I feel like I've lied to everyone, including myself. I told them I was fine, that I was moving forward, that I'd finally found peace. I even let myself believe it, for a while. But deep down, I knew. I knew it was all too fragile, too hollow, like patching up a sinking ship with tape and hoping it'll hold.

Maybe healing isn't real. Maybe the idea of "moving on" is just a lie we tell ourselves to make the world feel bearable. Maybe time doesn't heal anything—it just muffles the pain, shoves it down so far that you forget it's there until it comes back up with a vengeance. I can feel it now, clawing its way back to the surface, all the things I thought I'd left behind creeping in like shadows in the night.

And here I am, back where I started, maybe even worse off for having believed in something that was never real. I don't know what hurts more: the pain itself, or the disappointment that time didn't save me, that healing wasn't waiting for me on the other side of all this suffering. I'm still here, still broken, and now, without even the illusion that it's going to get better.

So, I sit here, sifting through the pieces of myself, not sure what to believe anymore. Maybe healing was always a myth, a story to keep us going. Or maybe I just wasn't meant to be one of the lucky ones, the ones who get to leave the past behind.