Healing in Public Feels Like Drowning in Front of Tourists

People love your healing when it’s poetic. When it fits in a caption. When it has a punchline or a moral. But what they don’t see is you sobbing in the bathroom at work, or zoning out mid-conversation, your smile stretched thin. Healing in public is brutal. You’re expected to make it palatable, inspirational. But real healing is clumsy. It stinks of fear and relapse. It’s you forgetting your own worth, again. It’s breaking a little every day until, weirdly, one day, you don’t.

We think we need to heal in secret, to come back shining. But your messy, in-process self is sacred, too. The healing is not just in the transformation, fam. It’s in the courage to be seen mid-metamorphosis. Blood, bandages, and all. You don’t owe anyone a sanitised version of your pain. The real miracle? You’re still here. Still trying. Still loving, even in fragments.

I hope that you choose joy today and always.

DandelionPrecious from MANI.