Hallelujah, She’s Healed (Or So I Thought)

Over the past bazillion years, or so it seems, I’ve been in a season of introspective growth.

Before that, I bounced from one toxic relationship to another, shapeshifting into whatever I thought someone else needed me to be. I changed myself to be accepted, to avoid conflict, to be chosen.

The last few years have been, in part, an intentional choice to remain single. I wanted to understand the parts of me that were drawn to emotionally unavailable or unkind people. I wanted to break patterns instead of repeating them.

For a while, I thought I’d succeeded.

Hallelujah. She’s healed.

Cue the celebration.

And maybe, in some ways, I have healed.

But relationships have a funny way of revealing the work that’s still left to do.

Recently, I snapped at a close friend. A serious bark that shocked both her and me. It was the first time I’d ever snapped at her, but it wasn’t the first time I’d felt hurt, misunderstood, or uncomfortable with the way something landed between us.

What I recognized after reflecting on this encounter wasn’t the disagreement itself. It was the realization that I’d never voiced any of those smaller moments before.

I’d held them back.

Not because I feared her.

Not because she isn’t thoughtful, intelligent, self-aware, or deeply caring.

Quite the opposite.

I respected her wisdom so much that, somewhere along the way, I started trusting it more than my own.

When something felt off, I assumed she must be seeing something I wasn’t. When a comment stung, I tucked the feeling away. When I disagreed, I adjusted myself instead.

I surrendered my own perspective in favor of someone else’s.

And that’s where the realization hit me.

Many of us think people-pleasing only shows up in unhealthy relationships. But sometimes it follows us into the healthy ones, too. Sometimes we stop silencing ourselves out of fear of rejection and start silencing ourselves out of admiration, respect, or the belief that someone else must know better.

The pattern changes costumes, but it’s still the same pattern.

Many of us think being a good friend means being supportive. Being understanding. Giving people grace. Seeing the best in them.

And sure, that’s part of it.

But friendship also requires something more than understanding. It requires participation.

And that’s where another a-ha hit me.

I understood her.

I understood where her words came from. I understood her intentions. I understood the experiences and patterns that shaped the way she moved through the world.

And because I understood why, I gave myself permission not to tell her what.

What hurt.

What felt off.

What landed differently than she intended.

I told myself it wasn’t worth bringing up. That she didn’t mean it that way. That she would never intentionally cause harm.

But understanding someone isn’t the same thing as being honest with them.

In fact, sometimes understanding can become a reason not to speak.

Growth happens in the feedback loop of relationships. If I unintentionally hurt someone and they never tell me, I never get the chance to clarify, repair, reconsider, or grow.

I had protected both of us from discomfort, but I had also protected the relationship from deeper intimacy.

By withholding my reactions, hurts, disagreements, and perspectives, I wasn’t just protecting myself. I was also unintentionally withholding information that my friend needed to know me fully.

In a strange way, all of my understanding had created distance.

My friend wasn’t actually in relationship with the real me. She was in relationship with the version of me that had already filtered, softened, edited, and accommodated itself.

And perhaps I wasn’t giving her enough credit, either.

I was so focused on understanding her humanity that I forgot to trust her with mine.

I trusted her intentions. I trusted her wisdom. I trusted her heart.

What I didn’t trust was that our friendship was strong enough to survive my honesty.

I forgot that friendship isn’t just about seeing another person’s perspective. It’s also about allowing your own perspective to be seen.

Real friendship isn’t the absence of discomfort. Real friendship makes room for it. It creates space for misunderstandings to be untangled, for differing perspectives to coexist, and for both people to remain fully themselves.

In all this reflection, my first instinct was to feel disappointed that I wasn’t as healed as I thought I was.

But that isn’t quite true.

Healing isn’t a destination you arrive at and declare complete. There is no finish line, no peak to reach.

There is only the ongoing discovery of new layers of ourselves as life and relationships reflect them back to us.

And even with all the work I’ve done, I’m realizing I haven’t fully risked being known.

Some part of me still doesn’t fully trust that I will be held if I am, so it has been easier for me to offer empathy for others because I’m too terrified of offering honesty for myself.

But true understanding doesn’t require self-erasure. In fact, by hogging all the understanding myself, I realized I was refusing to let her practice her own humanity on me.

I guess this is my next layer of healing, transitioning from learning how to set boundaries with unsafe people to learning how to be messy and honest with safe people.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ♥