"From Numbness to Healing: My Journey Through Pain, Reflection, and Growth"

I owe you all an apology for the silence on my blog and social media lately. The truth is, I’ve been navigating a tough season, and when life gets hard, my default response is to withdraw—from everything and everyone. I started making excuses for why I wasn't posting. I told myself it didn’t matter because I don’t have a huge following yet, so I wasn’t letting anyone down. But in reality, I was. I was letting myself down, and to me, that’s far worse.

This blog isn’t just about helping others; it’s about helping myself. It’s about holding myself accountable. As I reflected on how I reached this point, I realized something painful: I had let one bad choice snowball into a series of bad choices. And that first choice? It was made because I didn’t want to feel—anything. I wanted to be numb.

Feelings have never been easy for me. I grew up in a home where emotions weren’t allowed. Crying was punished. Vulnerability was a weakness. As an adult, this manifested in me becoming cold and detached. When others cried, I felt anger rise inside me. When I felt the urge to cry, I would suppress it until it turned into rage. I didn’t fully understand this until I started therapy a few years ago.

Therapy showed me that I lived in extremes: I was either happy or angry—nothing in between. It also revealed how deeply I had suppressed my emotions. I couldn’t cry even when I wanted to. It’s taken years of hard work, but I can now recognize about ten different emotions, and sometimes, I can even let myself cry. But I’ll be honest—I still prefer not to feel them.

So, what happened this time? What made me want to shut down and be numb again? Honestly, it wasn’t some catastrophic event. It was simply that I wasn’t as healed as I thought I was.

After nearly two years of staying single and focusing on my growth, I started easing back into dating. Last summer, I met someone who made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt safe, comfortable, and hopeful. He spoke about building a future together, setting goals, and growing as a team.

But then things shifted. He started blowing me off for his two female friends, ghosting me for days at a time. When I did hear from him, he’d say he was going through a lot and didn’t want to burden me with his problems. I tried to be there for him, but he kept pushing me away, only to pull me back in when it suited him.

When I finally confronted him about how I was feeling, he didn’t care. For the first time since meeting him, he didn’t listen. Instead, he gaslit me, making me feel like I was overreacting, like my feelings weren’t valid. After two exhausting months, I realized I had to walk away.

Ending things broke me. It triggered past traumas and deep insecurities. I felt unworthy, unlovable, and not enough. Those feelings overwhelmed me, and in response, I wanted to shut them off. I wanted to be numb.

But here I am, sharing this with you. Because even in my lowest moments, I know one thing: staying numb isn’t the answer. Healing isn’t linear, and sometimes we stumble backward before we move forward again.

I’m still here, still fighting, still growing. And if you’re going through something similar, I want you to know this: it’s okay to feel. It’s okay to hurt. But don’t let the pain silence you. Don’t let it stop you from showing up for yourself.

This blog is my promise to keep showing up—not just for you, but for me.