Maybe you've never really talked about what happened. 

By Oluwatomi Peters,        

Psychotherapist 

Maybe you've never really talked about what happened.

• You told yourself to move on.

• You told yourself to forgive.

• You acted like it didn't matter anymore.

But deep down, it still hurts.

• Sometimes the pain shows up as anger.

• Sometimes as resentment.

• Sometimes as overthinking, withdrawal, distrust, or difficulty letting people get close to you.

And sometimes, you don't even realise how much the experience has affected you until something reminds you of it.

Keeping your feelings inside may help you avoid a difficult conversation for a while, but unprocessed emotions don't always disappear just because we stop talking about them.

Healing doesn't necessarily mean confronting the person who hurt you.

Sometimes healing begins with acknowledging:

“What happened to me hurt me.”

• You don't have to minimise your pain just because other people think you should have moved on by now.

• You can acknowledge what happened without allowing it to control your future.

• You can forgive someone without pretending that what they did was okay.

And you can choose to heal even if the person who hurt you never apologizes or understands the impact of their actions.

You deserve the opportunity to process what you've been carrying not because you're weak, but because you don't have to carry it forever.

If this speaks to you, take a moment today and ask yourself:

“What am I still carrying that I've never given myself permission to process?”

Sometimes, that's where healing begins.

 Mr. Tom | Psychotherapist