The Loneliness of Healing: Breaking Generational Cycles in a World That Hasn’t Caught Up

The Legacy We Inherited

I grew up in a home where emotions were not welcome — at least, not all of them. Anger was allowed. Anger made sense. But sadness? Vulnerability? Crying? That was met with confusion or disgust. If I cried, I was told to stop. If I showed sensitivity, I was made to feel like something was wrong with me. There was no space to ask why I felt what I did. There was just the expectation that I stop.

One moment I carry with me happened in third grade. I had left my homework on my desk at school — a simple mistake, but one that devastated me. When we got home and I realized it was missing, I panicked. I cried. I begged my mom to let me go back and get it. She looked at me and said, “Why are you crying? It’s not that big of a deal.” But to me, it was. I wasn’t crying because of the homework. I was crying because I felt like I had failed. Like I could have done better and didn’t. And instead of being comforted, I was dismissed. The only person who consoled me that day was my grandmother — the same woman my mom says never showed her affection growing up. But with us, her grandchildren, she had softened. She held me while I cried. She didn’t say much, but she was present. And in a house where feelings were often shut down, that presence meant everything.

Another memory comes from a few years later, when I was trying to learn English. It wasn’t easy — it wasn’t my first language, and I struggled with pronunciation and fluency. At the time, I was reading below grade level, and it made me feel small. Embarrassed. So I made a decision: I started checking out Harry Potter books from the library, along with the audio CDs. Every day after homework center, I would sit and listen to the CDs while reading along with the book, sometimes pausing to look up words or repeat sentences out loud. It was tedious and lonely, but it worked. Over time, I caught up — and then surpassed my grade level.

What I remember most, though, is how my mom would tell me, “You’re always reading. Go do something else.” She didn’t understand. To her, it was just another book. But to me, it was a language, a world, a fight to belong — a fight I was quietly winning.

I think about those moments now, as a mother, and I realize: I was never taught how to process emotion. I was taught how to suppress it. I was never taught how to reflect. I was taught how to perform. But even then, I was doing the best I could with what I had — and so was my mom. That doesn’t erase the hurt. But it helps me hold the truth with both hands: I can be grateful for what she gave me, and still grieve what I didn’t get.

Parenting While Reparenting Ourselves

The most humbling part of being a cycle breaker is realizing that your kids don’t just learn from what you teach — they learn from how you heal. My children are growing up in a world where emotional safety is prioritized. Where apologies are modeled. Where space is respected. Where crying isn’t shameful — it’s allowed. And yet, even in that, I still make mistakes. I still get overwhelmed. I still snap. But the difference now is: I come back. I apologize. I explain. And every time I do, I teach them that love doesn’t require perfection. It requires repair.

A few years ago, my daughter started feeling left out from her friend group. She had introduced two of her friends to each other, and the two of them began bonding more with each other than with her. She felt excluded, replaced. She was angry, hurt, and didn’t know what to do with those feelings. I asked her if she had told her friends how she felt, and she said no. So I told her a story — one that had happened to me not long before. I had introduced two of my friends, and they started hanging out and making plans without me. It stung. I didn’t say anything at first, but eventually I shared how I felt — gently, without blame. My friend validated me, apologized, and explained it hadn’t been intentional. That conversation meant so much, because it reminded me that naming our feelings gives people the chance to respond with care.

After hearing my story, my daughter talked to her friends. She told them how left out she had felt. And what she learned was exactly what I had learned: the exclusion wasn’t intentional. They just hadn’t realized. And after that, the dynamic shifted. They included her more. She felt seen. And I saw her grow in a way I didn’t know was possible at her age — not because she had all the answers, but because she had the language and the courage to try.

Then there was my son — just a few months ago. He was overwhelmed with homework, and I was overwhelmed too. I was cooking, cleaning, juggling a hundred things at once, and he kept saying, “I can’t do this without you.” I told him gently, “Please do what you can on your own, and I’ll help you as soon as I can.” He tried. But the overwhelm hit him too, and he stormed off, tears in his eyes. When I checked in on him, he looked at me and said, “Mom, right now I just need my space. Please give me my space.”

I could’ve been hurt by that. I could’ve taken it as disrespect. But honestly? I was so proud. My son had just modeled something it took me years to learn: Self-Regulation. Boundaries. Emotional clarity. He didn’t argue. He didn’t yell. He asked for space, and when he came back, he was calm and ready to work. I told him how proud I was of him — not just for doing the homework, but for knowing himself. For asking for what he needed.

These are the moments that remind me why I keep doing this work — even when it’s lonely, even when it hurts. Because I may not have had this safety growing up… but I’m building it now. And my kids? They’re growing up inside of it.

The Pain of Watching Others Stay the Same

One of the hardest parts of healing is watching someone you love choose not to grow with you.

There’s someone from my past — I’ll call him Aquarius — who meant more to me than I think he ever realized. For a long time, he wasn’t just someone I loved — he was my best friend. My safe space. My sounding board. We could spend hours on the phone, talking about everything and nothing, and I felt seen in a way I rarely had. That kind of connection doesn’t happen often. And even after our relationship ended, I held onto that friendship — not because I was trying to go back, but because it had once meant something real to both of us.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve done so much internal work — not just for me, but also because I knew how I had hurt him. Even though my healing journey began long before we met, something about the way I showed up in that relationship made me want to grow deeper, faster, more intentionally. I had shame — for a long time. But eventually, I stopped running from it. I took accountability. I named it. I said the words out loud — not just to him, but to the people closest to me. And something lifted. The shame transformed into clarity. I could finally breathe.

So when Aquarius reopened the door earlier this year — when he shared a vulnerable moment, a sliver of hope — I responded with patience. I gave him space when he disappeared for weeks. I didn’t pressure him. I checked in gently. I knew he was overwhelmed with life, with work, with his own emotional weight. I tried to meet him where he was. And for a while, I thought we were reconnecting — not as lovers, but as friends. As two people who had once known each other’s hearts.

But then came the silence. The vague explanations. The mixed signals — like sending me a song filled with meaning and future hope, only to follow it with a cold declaration: I’m going to move on. 

I didn’t ask him to stay. I didn’t beg for love. What I asked for was clarity. A conversation. A shared goodbye that honored the depth of what we had.

Instead, I was met with defensiveness. Dismissiveness. He said I was asking too many questions. That I was prolonging the conversation. That I was annoying.

And it hurt. Because what he didn’t see — or maybe didn’t care to see — was that I was doing something I had never been able to do before: holding space for someone else’s process while staying regulated in my own. I wasn’t reactive. I wasn’t demanding. I was patient in a way I had never been when we were together.

And still, I was treated like a burden. As if compassion somehow made me clingy. As if seeking understanding was just another way of holding on.

He told me, “We can talk. But after this, I expect not to hear from you again.” And that broke something.

Because in the last year and a half, all I’ve done is grow into someone I wish I had been for him back then. I didn’t expect him to come back. But I hoped he’d see me clearly. I hoped the friendship could survive. I hoped the love — even if it wasn’t romantic — could evolve.

Instead, I was erased.

And that’s the pain of healing alone. You grow. You soften. You try again — with boundaries, with compassion, with care. And still, people treat you as if you haven’t changed. As if your growth is invisible. Or worse — inconvenient.

Empathy, Not Excuses

I used to ask myself, “Why did I have to go through all of this?” Why couldn’t I have been born into a healthy family, into secure attachments, into a home where crying wasn’t something to be shut down, but something to be comforted?

And for a long time, I didn’t have an answer. All I had was grief. But now, after doing this work, I’ve come to understand something: Empathy doesn’t excuse what happened. But it does help me carry it differently.

My mom wasn’t a villain. She wasn’t cruel. She was just a woman doing the best she could with what she had — and what she had wasn’t much. She didn’t grow up with access to therapy. She didn’t have mental health language or resources. In her world, you didn’t cry to be comforted — you cried in silence and kept moving. And if you talked about therapy, you weren’t “getting help.” You were “going crazy.” That’s the world she came from.

So no… I don’t blame her. That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. But I’ve let go of the resentment, because I know that hurt people don’t need more judgment — they need context. And my mom’s context was survival.

Still, I’ve seen her change — not for me, but in her own way, with time. I’ve watched her parent my younger brothers with a softer edge. I’ve seen her be affectionate with my children in ways she never was with me — hugging them, kissing them, celebrating them. And while it sometimes feels foreign to witness, I know that same awkwardness must have shown on her face when she saw her own mother hold me through tears — something she never got.

It’s strange. To grieve the mother you needed while watching her become that mother — just not for you. But that’s part of healing, too. Accepting that people can grow, even if it’s too late for them to repair what they did to you.

And honestly? I don’t think my mom will ever change in the ways I once hoped. She’s said herself — “I’m too old to change.” Maybe she is. Or maybe she’s just tired. But either way, I don’t try to force it anymore. I don’t try to make her understand my pain. I’ve accepted that she might never fully see it. And that’s okay — because I see it now. And I’ve made a decision she never had the chance to make: I’m breaking the cycle. 

Not because I’m better.

Not because I’m perfect.

But because I was born into a different time — with access to therapy, support, language, and tools that weren’t available to her. Because I want my children to live in a home where emotional safety isn’t an accident — it’s intentional.

And yes, I get overwhelmed. I make mistakes. But I take accountability. I apologize. I check in with my kids after I snap. I model the repair I never received.

Sometimes I think about the people around me — the ones who seem to have had easier starts. The ones who met their partners in their twenties, built secure lives, got married without the detours of trauma and chaos. And I wonder, why not me?

But then I remember: My path wasn’t meant to be smooth. It was meant to be transformational. Because some of us weren’t born into healthy families — we were born to create them.

The Paradox of Healing

Healing is supposed to connect you — to yourself, to others, to something bigger. But what no one tells you is that sometimes, the deeper you go into healing, the more lonely it becomes.

Because growth isn’t just about self-care and affirmations. It’s about facing the wreckage you’ve left behind — the people you’ve hurt, the shame you’ve carried, the things you did when you were still moving through life in survival mode. It’s about waking up one day and realizing: I can’t live like this anymore. I don’t want to keep hurting people.

That’s what pushed me to heal. Not pressure from others. Not some perfect rock-bottom moment. But the realization that my inability to sit with discomfort — to tolerate fear, to regulate my emotions — was hurting people I loved. And once I saw that clearly, I couldn’t unsee it.

One of my earliest turning points came from someone I call Gemini. He didn’t shame me. He didn’t attack me. He simply pointed out — with calm honesty — that some of my reactions were disproportionate to the situation. No one had ever said that to me before. I’d always been enabled. But something about the way he said it, with care but firmness, stayed with me. That moment sent me to therapy — and it changed the entire course of my life. I’ll always be grateful for it.

And then there was Aquarius. Someone I hurt — deeply. Someone who, even now, has walls up so high that not even my growth can reach him. Not even others can get through. And sometimes, that reality breaks me all over again. Because I know I shattered something in him — and even though I’ve changed, he may never see that version of me. He may always look at me through the lens of who I was back then. And I get that. I don’t blame him. But it still hurts.

Because I didn’t heal to show off. I didn’t grow to make anyone feel small. I did the work because the weight of my own actions crushed me. Because the shame sat in my chest like stone. Because I couldn’t live with the thought that I might hurt someone else the way I hurt him.

So I sat with it. For weeks, for months, for years. Through silence. Through rejection. Through moments where I wanted to reach out with desperation — but instead chose love. Chose patience. Chose presence. And still… some people never came back.

That’s the paradox. 

You do the work so you can love better — but the people you want to show that to the most might never see it. You come back with softness — but they still see the storm. You speak with grace — but they still hear echoes of your past self.

And even when you understand it… it still leaves a hollow space.

But here’s what I’ve come to believe: Healing doesn’t guarantee reconciliation. Growth doesn’t promise recognition. Change isn’t always witnessed by the people who inspired it.

And yet… you keep going.

Because at some point, healing stops being about being seen by others — and starts being about living with yourself. And if the people you once hurt can’t accept that new version of you, it’s not because you haven’t changed.

It’s because your growth became a mirror they weren’t ready to look into.

Healing Forward

Healing is not a straight line. It’s not a three-step checklist. It’s not linear, or glamorous, or always rewarded.

Sometimes healing means parenting your children in ways you never experienced. Sometimes it means apologizing to people who won’t forgive you. Sometimes it means forgiving people who never apologized. And sometimes, it means walking away — not because you want to — but because you know that staying would only recreate the pain you worked so hard to escape.

I used to think healing would feel like peace.

But now I know: Healing often feels like being misunderstood by the people you’ve changed for. Like mourning relationships that couldn’t survive your growth. Like watching others stay stuck — and still choosing not to join them.

But even in that loneliness… 

Even when it feels like no one sees you…

You see you. And that is enough.

Because healing isn’t just about breaking cycles. It’s about becoming the person you once needed — and offering that person to the world anyway, even if they don’t always know what to do with your love.