PeonyMagazine

  I always thought  healing  would feel like light: soft, gentle, almost like the scene at the end of a film where the character breathes easy, finally free. But when I started healing, it didn’t feel anything like that. It felt like fire. It felt like my chest was a furnace that had been locked for years, and the moment I cracked it open, every suppressed ember leapt out. I wasn’t peaceful. I was angry. Furious, even. At first, I thought something was wrong with me. Who gets mad while trying to heal? Shouldn’t healing feel like forgiveness, serenity, acceptance? But the thing is, before I found any peace, I found rage. I was angry at the people who had hurt me, at the years I’d lost, at the version of myself who had swallowed her voice to survive. It came out in unexpected ways. I snapped at people who didn’t deserve it. I felt a lump in my throat every time I tried to journal. I paced the room at night as though the walls themselves had wronged me. The hardest part was ...