When Growth Means Outgrowing Dysfunction

The Myth That Healing Means Peace

For most of my life, I thought healing would feel like lightness—like clarity, calm, and closure. As a therapist, I’ve learned that healing rarely starts with peace. It usually begins with disruption. 

I thought once I healed, I’d be “fixed.” That nothing would bother me anymore. I’d be like Buddha—peaceful, detached, observing without judgment, floating through the world in a state of enlightened grace, seeing only love and beauty and maybe a few unicorns.

That’s not how it went.

When Growth Feels Like Chaos

In trauma recovery, growth doesn’t immediately make life easier. Sometimes it actually destabilizes the nervous system before it re-regulates. When you start seeing patterns clearly—the subtle forms of control, emotional neglect, or manipulation that used to blend into the background—your body notices what your mind used to rationalize.

And once you can’t unsee something, you can’t pretend it’s not hurting you anymore. The things you tolerated, the justifications you made, the people you kept close out of obligation or fear—they all start to look different through the lens of healing.

The In-Between: Disintegration Before Reintegration

That’s when it happens: the in-between. Therapists sometimes call this “disintegration before reintegration.” The old ways don’t fit anymore, but the new connections haven’t fully formed yet.

I didn’t expect that liminal space to last as long as it did. It doesn’t stay lonely forever—but it’s definitely a season. Or two. Or three. It depends on how deep the rupture was and how willing you are to stay with yourself through it.

The Protective Lie We Tell Ourselves

You also start to see how you’ve been lying to yourself to stay psychologically safe. Because safety means you don’t have to change. It doesn’t require you to leave.

Self-deceit isn’t weakness; it’s a protective function. It allows you to survive realities you weren’t yet resourced to face. But when that veil lifts—when you realize how much you’ve denied or minimized to make something work—it can be painful in its own right.

What Alignment Really Feels Like

Still, that kind of self-honesty is powerful. Because once you stop lying to yourself, you begin living in alignment. Your body relaxes when your truth and your choices finally match.

And when you’re living in alignment, it becomes much harder to ignore when other people aren’t. You start to notice when their words and actions don’t match. You see when they’re posturing, avoiding, pretending.

Most of the time, it’s not malicious—they’re not intentionally lying to you. They’re just not being honest with themselves. Because they’re not ready yet.

Seeing Clearly Hurts—But It’s Not Failure

When you see how much you’ve lied to yourself to stay psychologically safe, you start to understand just how common that is. You realize that most people are doing the same thing. You realize you weren’t ever the problem.

But that realization doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes, the truth that you weren’t the problem hurts more—because now you can see so clearly what others can’t. And the hardest part is knowing you can’t help people wake up.

They have to do that on their own timeline. You don’t get to pull them through. And you don’t have to be the collateral damage while they figure it out either.

When Grief and Freedom Coexist

This is the point in healing when grief and freedom coexist. Outgrowing people doesn’t mean you never loved them. Leaving toxic environments doesn’t make you ungrateful. Setting boundaries doesn’t make you cruel.

It simply means you’re finally choosing yourself. And with that choice comes grief—not just for what’s lost, but for the parts of you that had to disappear to stay connected in the first place.

Sometimes you’ll even miss what you left—because even pain can feel familiar, and familiarity can feel safe.

The Bridge Between Surviving and Becoming

Healing is not about constant peace; it’s about honest alignment. The peace comes later—after the nervous system trusts that the new life is safe.

You are not crazy for wanting better. You are not selfish for growing. You are not mean for saying “enough.” You are not broken because you don’t fit in old spaces anymore.

You are not losing your life. You are finding your real one.

Continue Reading & Watching

If this resonates, you can read how I explored this topic in my Elephant Journal publication, Growth Hurts Before It Heals.

And if you’re curious what comes after the awakening—the messy middle, the rebuilding, the moments of unexpected joy—you can find my After the Awakening video series on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram. Each platform features the same content, so you can follow along wherever you feel most at home.