to those that feel broken

Backward Facing Therapy gives you behind-the-scenes stories from my time as a therapist and therapy client. It’s soulful and transformative mental health content from my couch to yours. You can support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber or sharing this post. I’m so happy you’re here. Sit by me.

There was a time when I felt like a hodge podge of a human. I tried to live an authentic life yet there I was walking around with internal wounds that I had patched up, repressed, and ignored.

The wounds were deep but the pain was just below the surface. I was always afraid that that pain would be seen. That people would see me as weak, emotional, or broken.

When I was twenty-one, my appearance of having it all together was of the utmost importance. I wanted to be seen as worthy, smart, and strong.

And for a while? I was all those things.

Until the deep painful wounds started causing emotional and psychological pain that even I couldn’t control.

I knew that my wounds needed to be tended to. I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I couldn’t function anymore.

So I sought professional help.

Do you know what I said to my therapist during our first visit?

“I’m broken and I don't know why.”

Without missing a beat, my new therapist replied, “Let’s start repairing the cracks in your armor, Kim.”

broken

adjective

suffering emotional pain that is so strong that it changes the way you live, usually as a result of an unpleasant event

Cambride definition

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As a therapist, I’ve met a lot of people who’ve described themselves as broken. People who felt broken from the weight of anxiety, depression, chronic health issues, marriage troubles, and more.

Then there are those who’ve been broken by what others have done to them:

• The young new mom broken from her husband’s slaps, kicks, and shoves.

• The sixty-year-old man broken from a father who burned cigarette butts on his back, whipped him with a belt on his back, and withheld food as a punishment.

• The ten-year-old girl that had to beg her neighbors for food because her parents never bought any. They spent their money on drugs while the child’s basic needs went unmet.

• The twenty-year-old who came home to her apartment one night after work only to find someone she used to date standing in her bedroom. He then proceeded to sexually assault her while intermittently physically beating her as well.

As crappy as it is, pain is part of the human experience. We will experience physical, emotional, and psychological pain. There’s just no getting around it.

We will go through life with cuts and wounds and scars and scabs.

People will hurt us, disappoint us, abandon us, betray us.

And we’ll feel broken for a while.

And when you feel broken? Don’t ignore it by patching it up like I did.

Talk about it. Process it. Deal with it.

While we may be forever changed by the event that broke us, we are not forever broken.

Read that last sentence again.

That young new mom who was physically abused by her husband? She left him, started therapy, and went back to college. She learned that he was the broken one.

The sixty-year-old man who was still carrying the weight from his childhood? After he started therapy, he realized that he had been isolating himself because he didn’t want to feel the pain of brokenness again. We worked on healing his inner child and as we did, his hurt and anger started to fade. He rebuilt his self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence and got married for the first time at sixty-two.

The ten-year-old girl ended up in foster care but she was eventually adopted by a loving couple. During therapy, the girl learned that hunger, neglect, and abuse are not a normal part of childhood. She also learned to stop blaming herself for her parents’ struggle with addiction.

The twenty-year-old that was sexually assaulted by someone she used to date? She used therapy to work through the trauma of that event. Every time she felt less broken, she likened her healing to the art of Kintsugi.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing a broken dish with gold so it’s stronger, and more beautiful than before. Traditional Kintsugi is a slow process. It requires patience, focus, and persistence.

Should we not afford ourselves the same when we’re feeling broken?

Back to the twenty-year-old who compared her healing to Kintsugi. She worked her way through college and went on to become a therapist herself.

That girl?

She’s golden.

She’s me.