As children, we do not get to choose the circumstances we grow up in. Don’t get me wrong: I grew up in a very good and safe environment, but there was also a lot of sadness around me. A kind of sadness that is not always visible, but that I could feel.
Some of those fears and emotions are things I still carry with me today.
I work on understanding and processing them, but when you are confronted with them again and again, it can pull you back into that black-and-white space. A place that can somehow feel safe and familiar, even when you know that safety is partly an illusion.
We try to move forward. We build a new life and work through our own pain. But healing can become complicated when the people around you are still carrying their own unresolved pain.
You can love someone, understand them and want the best for them, but you cannot do their healing for them.
Sometimes that helplessness hurts just as much as the sadness itself.
