Part 1: The Healing Myth: How Therapy's 'Get Better' Narrative Keeps Us Stuck
When healing becomes the barrier
Part 1: The Healing Myth: How Therapy's 'Get Better' Narrative Keeps Us Stuck
I had felt myself softening for some time. And even more recently I had toyed with the idea that I may not be a bipolar manic depressant after all, with bouts of anger, range, and hate – mostly aimed at myself, but exploding and affecting those within my reach as well. Those episodes had all but disappeared for some time now.
The current work was aimed at the mania that still showed up from time to time. Enough to move me to take action. I timed the cycles well, and hurriedly implemented the learned strategies that had successfully “stuck” and made it past the recommended 30, 40, 60 days – take your pick – for breaking and creating a new habit. I had some incredibly strong tactics in my arsenal, and I had had enough success that I naively started to believe. What if I really am unbroken now? What if I am finally fixed?
It was 8 a.m. on a February Friday when I pulled into my driveway after a long night shift; teary face and completely defeated and strategizing which way this was going to end. There was a safe of guns available but I had long lost the privilege to access them without permission – or more like unspoken supervision.
I sat there for a good half hour, crying hysterically, confused, scared and shocked I was in this place again. How can these thoughts be so inviting? After all the work I’ve done?! The scary part crept up when I realized this wasn’t like before. The fear came in when the numbing peace took over, and I was thinking how to practically carry out a plan B, as my plan A was locked and loaded but behind a lock and key.
I was coherent enough to dial a number that I knew would always answer, or at least text me back. In retrospect, I have to give myself more credit, as I did it completely against my will, full of embarrassment and shame and hopelessness; I was sure it wouldn't make a difference but I knew better than not try.
After 20 years of working through my trauma, of genuinely accepting everything that was, of making peace and knowing my healed self as perfect – this meant that there was really no way out. The depression was part of my DNA as I suspected all along.
Fast forward 6 months later; I was not only alive but thriving, the world was beautiful and bright. I had experienced a transformation that went beyond this earth and life. I felt myself a child of God, the universe, or whoever’s in the sky. I felt clean and pure and for the first time I was able to understand that all the pain and suffering was something that happened to me, it wasn't’ who I was.
I distinctly remember the regression that helped me taste God’s love. She took me back so far, that I remember when I asked to join this life. It was a sense of a memory, more than a solid remembrance, but I could feel my excitement to be born and experience this human life.
I won’t burden you with the way I experience my existence, it’s “weird” because “weird” is who I am, but I do want to share that on many different levels, the opportunity is there for anyone to have. You do not need to believe in Jesus, God, the universe or anyone at all. There is a path to get you back to you, exactly as you see you in your head and heart.
If there is ANY thought, or hope or possibility, no matter how minuscule or fleeting it shows up, this means that you are there! You are inside, fighting daily to remind you that you do exist exactly as you think you are.
But not the dirty, soiled, broken mask that you think others think you are. If there is a little, quiet voice that keeps insisting, it is YOU that’s speaking up. It is the you that decided to retreat when you were laughed at, ridiculed, abused, neglected and unloved.
There is a way to that background world of possibility, the one you day dream about when the monsters are asleep. The one that whispers softly, then retreats, but won't give up on you regardless of defeat.
The method is more than just regression. It's multifaceted and deeply personal—a constellation of practices rather than a single path. But it is simple and instantaneous, if you are willing to take one more chance.
It requires stepping beyond conventional promises of eliminating, befriending, or fixing your darkness. And it gives you back the well of inner knowing that has been speaking to you all along.
In Part 2, I'll show you how.
