Why Healing Does Not Always Feel Better Right Away

Healing is often described as relief, clarity, or finally feeling lighter.

But for many people, healing does not feel better at first. Sometimes it feels harder, more challenging, or confusing. That does not mean something is wrong. It often means something important is changing.

One of the most common things I hear from people in therapy is, “I thought healing would feel easier than this.” That belief alone can make the process feel discouraging.

The truth is that healing is not just about feeling better. It is about learning how to be with yourself in a new way. Healing does not mean forgetting the pain or trauma you have experienced. It means that, even with that pain, you are able to move forward.

Healing Is Not the Same as Avoiding Pain

For a long time, survival may have meant pushing through, staying quiet, staying agreeable, or staying strong. Those strategies often helped you get through what you needed to get through.

Healing asks something different.

It asks you to slow down, notice what you feel, and stay present instead of dissociating or numbing.

That shift can feel uncomfortable, especially if you were taught that feeling deeply was unsafe. When you stop avoiding pain, it can feel louder at first. That does not mean it is getting worse. It means you are no longer running from it.

Your Body Needs Time to Catch Up

You can understand that you are safe now and still feel unsettled inside. Safety is not something your body learns through logic. It learns through experience.

If your nervous system learned over time that certain emotions or reactions led to harm, it makes sense that it would take time to trust something new. Healing often involves teaching your body, slowly and repeatedly, that you can feel and still be okay.

That learning process can feel tiring. It can feel vulnerable. It can feel unfamiliar.

All of that is part of the work, even though it is hard and scary.

Self-Compassion Is Part of the Healing

Self-compassion is not about being positive or minimizing what you have been through. It is about responding to yourself with care instead of criticism.

When healing feels slow or uncomfortable, many people turn inward and even feel frustrated with themselves. They tell themselves they should be further along or doing better by now. That pressure can make the process feel heavier.

Self-compassion sounds different.

• It sounds like noticing when something hurts and not judging yourself for it.

• It sounds like allowing yourself to rest when you need rest.

• It sounds like choosing patience instead of force.

This does not happen all at once. It is practiced in small moments. Over time, those moments add up.

Feeling Worse Does Not Mean You Are Failing

There are points in healing where things feel closer to the surface. You might notice emotions you used to push away, or patterns you did not fully see before. Sometimes reactions feel stronger, not because things are getting worse, but because you are no longer bracing against them in the same way.

That can be unsettling, especially if you expected progress to look like steady improvement. Many people assume healing means fewer feelings and less disruption. When that is not what happens, it is easy to assume something has gone wrong.

But feeling more is not the same as going backward. Often it means you are finally in a place where your system feels safe enough to let you notice what has been there all along.

Healing Is Learning to Stay With Yourself

Healing is not about getting rid of pain or making it disappear. It is about learning how to stay with yourself when things feel uncomfortable, uncertain, or tender.

That ability builds slowly. It develops through repeated moments of choosing presence over avoidance and kindness over self-criticism. Some days that looks like progress. Other days it looks like simply not turning away from yourself.

Early in my career, a mentor once told me, “What is on its way up is on its way out.” I have thought about that often when working with trauma. When emotions rise, when old patterns become more visible, it can feel like things are getting worse. In reality, it is often a sign that something is loosening its grip.

That does not make the process easy, but I have found with my clients it can make the process a little less frightening and allow space for hope to arise, because healing and moving forward are possible.

Want More?

If healing feels harder instead of easier right now, you are not alone. Many people reach this stage when they begin slowing down and feeling more, rather than pushing through.

If this resonated with you…

• Share this blog with someone else on the healing path

• I’d love to hear what resonated most for you. Feel free to share in the comments

• Explore more DBT-informed healing on Instagram: @thedbttherapist

  
  

For those healing from narcissistic abuse or gaslighting, I created The DBT Workbook for Narcissistic Abuse and Gaslighting to support this phase of recovery. It offers DBT-informed skills focused on safety, self-compassion, and rebuilding from the inside out.