Healing When You’re Still in the Fog: You Don’t Need to Have All the Answers!
Healing is a topic that shows up everywhere, in therapy, with family, friends, partners, at work, in music, in movies. It’s portrayed in so many ways, but one theme shows up over and over again: the idea that pain must come with a lesson. That there has to be a silver lining. I do believe that sometimes, yes, we can find meaning in what we’ve gone through. But not always, and definitely not right away. Some therapists and people in general tend to rush that part. They want you to get to the “lesson” before you’ve even processed the loss. And when you're still in the fog of it, unclear, overwhelmed, and unsure, some will tell you to keep going anyway, even when you can’t see. Because for them, the destination matters more than the experience of being lost. Because sometimes, people feel uncomfortable holding that space for you or may not want themselves to even think about their own pain and healing.
When it comes to healing, there is no size fits all. Every person is unique and their journey should be respected and taken with care. The first thing we have to learn about healing is that it is definitely not linear. Social media and everything out there does have this one right, we got to give it to them. As a therapist and person who have had their fair share of healing to do, I have to agree with it. But one thing that became clear when it came to my own healing is the fact that something inside of me was trying to look for answers. The reason as to why I had to go through the pain I went through. Why were people pushing me to learn something from the experience? I found myself constantly alone in the pain of it all. Misunderstood and confused were the main characters in my healing. This takes me to the second part of healing which is that we must feel the pain. We must sit with the emotion. We must sit with our feelings and we do not need to fix it right away. In a culture were everything has a quick fix and we have constant gratification, this seems impossible. And to be honest, it was impossible for a while for me. I sat down with the pain, but I still tied to fix it, to find meaning, to understand it. I became obsessed with the topic of finding meaning to my pain, to the point that I forgot that in order to heal, I needed to just sit with the pain. To cry about it, to be angry, disappointed, frustrated at not only the person who inflicted this pain but also on myself.
I write about my experience in the hopes that when someone reads this, they do not find themselves alone. In the hopes that they know that healing is quite literally a mess! And it is completely fine. I believe the other idea that social media and people have about healing is that to be able to have healthy relationships, you need to be completely healed. You need to “have done the work”, you need to “have gone to therapy”, “you need to deal with all your trauma and open every single door to the past and explore it”. I call bullshit. Not everything needs to be healed, and honestly, to have healthy relationships, you do not need to be completely healed or “fixed”. Even if you do all of this, chances are you will be triggered by someone in your life and this is how you learn to live with the pain and continue on your healing path. Healing is a never-ending road but you learn so much on the way there, that at the end of the day, the destination becomes insignificant.
As someone raised in Latino culture, where pain is often hidden and emotions are swept under the rug, healing can feel not just hard, but completely misunderstood. In many Latinx families, there’s an expectation to push through the pain quickly, to stay strong, to not linger in sadness. You're expected to keep going, smile, and act like everything is fine. Showing sadness can be seen as weakness. Expressing frustration, anger, or grief is often met with “other people have it worse” or “you have so much, why are you still upset?” That kind of emotional invalidation makes healing even more complicated, not just because you're hurting, but because you're also being told how to hurt, how to heal, and that both should come with an expiration date. Being a Latina navigating emotional pain often means unlearning the belief that healing must be hidden, rushed, or justified.
When it comes to healing when you are still in the fog is one of the most complicated things to do. How do you heal when you barely know what to do? Or you are still trying to come into terms with what happened or how to makes sense of it all. The reality is that you do not have to. You can stay in the fog for a while and eventually, it will settle. Eventually, you will get out of it to the other side, whether that is still rainy or full of sun! Healing should be respected in every stage. Darkness that comes with the healing should be honored. Healing isn’t about forcing a silver lining. Some pain doesn’t come with a lesson and you do not need all the answers- and that’s totally fine. We can hold space for what’s real, not just what’s easy. And you don’t need to be fixed to be worthy of love and connection.
