On Healing, Not Time

When someone experiences loss, we often hear the phrase “Time heals all wounds.”
This week, I want to debunk that.

Time is a nonspatial continuum measured by events that move from past, to present, to future. That’s straight from Webster’s. In other words, time is a marker, not a mechanism. It tracks moments—it doesn’t transform them.

A thermometer doesn’t change the temperature of a room; it only measures it. Time works the same way. It does not heal trauma. No matter how many years pass, no matter how deeply memories are buried or minimized, an unhealed wound remains exactly that—unhealed.

Healing requires motion. And when I say motion, I mean actual movement, not avoidance you are calling maturity.

Grief, according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, includes stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They don’t arrive neatly or in order, and they’re most often associated with the loss of a loved one. But trauma follows a similar path.

I can trace those stages through my own childhood trauma.

I was molested by someone in my family. My memories are fragmented, but for years I lived as though it never happened. So did my family. That was denial.

Then came bargaining—convincing myself it happened over a longer period than the single incident I remember clearly. As if reshaping the timeline could make it easier to carry.

Then anger. Anger at that side of the family. Anger that the person who hurt me appeared to be loved more than I was. How could they not be, if I had to live with this and they didn’t?

Anger is dangerous. It makes you reckless with truth. It pushes you to confide in people who haven’t earned your trust. It damages relationships and, if left unchecked, damages you.

Then came depression. It lasted over a decade. During that time, I engaged in self-harming behaviors and believed I was unworthy of real love—the kind of love God intended for me.

And now—writing this, knowing it will live on the internet indefinitely—I still have dark moments.

But I have acceptance.

Just as the loss of someone I loved deeply as a teenager shaped me… just as cherished memories of vacations and professional milestones shaped me… this trauma shaped me too. It is part of my story. It will never disappear.

It influences my choices. It informs how I move through the world. And I have two options: learn how to live with it, or reject it and suffer the consequences of buried pain.

I am not choosing the latter.

Although it’s been nearly 30 years, time did not bring me here. A decision did. The decision to walk through healing instead of around it. Without that choice, I might still be hurting others—continuing a cycle I never asked to inherit.

Time didn’t heal this wound.

I chose to.

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A reminder from inside the space I’m learning to hold—
healing doesn’t erase the past; it teaches us how to live with it honestly.

Yours in haute healing,
DreamGirl 🌿✨