What Healing Looks Like (for me)

As I left my weekly counseling session, I was emotionally raw. An old friend called and asked “How’s the PTSD?”

Even though the words of deep concern came from an old friend, the question got under my skin. How do you think it is? Everything you’d think it might be, only more.

I paused before responding. “It’s going, I guess.” Shrug. Recently, I determined talking to me after counseling isn’t a good idea. My soul’s just been scraped to the bone and is coarse as sandpaper.

We don’t understand much about PTSD and trauma, much less what healing is. At its best, I believe healing is a path back to self—the way God made you.

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The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
    and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18 ESV

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Healing isn’t fixing.

Healing isn’t about figuring out how to have the most perfect day or live your best life now. Healing is about facing the hurt you’ve experienced, naming the emotions you feel, and figuring out how to go on from there.

Healing is not neat.

It’s messy, uncomfortable, and often misunderstood.

Healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken—it’s about unlearning the lie that you were ever broken to begin with. If you’re broken, who do they think broke you?

Healing isn’t reinventing yourself.

You’re remembering. You’re returning
to the you that existed before the world told you to shrink, doubt, and to forget your worth.

Right now, I have an open wound. One day, a scar will mark its place and someone will be able to point to it and ask “What happened there?”

That day is not today.

Be salty, stay lit.

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™

#bgbg2#BibleGateway

The Stigma Stops Here.🛑

#mentalhealthmatters