The Only Way Out is Through

Read Time: Est. 6-7 Minutes

The Darkness After Trauma

The months after my rape were, without a doubt, the darkest and scariest of my life.

Hopelessness was a shadow that enveloped everything-suffocating and choking out every last flicker of light. It was an overwhelming and all-consuming surety that the pain would never end. Many times over, I felt it was too dark to see any way out.

When the pain felt unbearable, when the weight became too soul crushing to bear any longer, I felt trapped. I knew I couldn’t go backwards, and I certainly didn’t want to stay where I was, but I was terrified to continue on the current path-I didn’t feel like I was strong enough to face each next day.

The hard truth is this: when you’re cornered by your pain, and it feels like there’s no escape, the only way out is through.

If you’re currently in a dark place, maybe that’s the last thing you want to hear right now. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wishing for a shortcut or an easier, more painless way out.

What True Healing Really Looks Like

People often think of healing as getting better. They think of it as the days you breathe easier, the breakthroughs and the moments where things feel lighter, like they might just be okay again.

But healing isn’t just the light-it’s also learning how to sit in the dark and still hold on.

In fact, I believe that true healing lies in the hardest days-the days you are drowning in an ocean of grief and sorrow. The hardest battles you’ll fight in your healing journey are what shape your strength, and surviving days that you think could kill you is what shows you, over time, that you are capable of fighting your way through.

It really sucks to say that there is no back door to peace. That healing is difficult, scary, and painful work-and you can’t cheat your way through it.

In the depths of my struggle, times when it felt too dark to see any way out, the light at the end of the tunnel was always a realization that the way out was through-and I was strong enough to keep forging my way.

The Pain of Denial vs. The Pain of Truth

I remember one specifically difficult day in therapy. I had just suffered through multiple flashbacks, and through tears, I asked my therapist if the denial was really so bad after all.

What I wanted was an easy way out. I wanted her to tell me that if I stopped fighting the denial, I could just pretend none of it had ever happened and move on with my life.

Of course, she didn’t. She thought for a second, then asked me how I could ever heal a wound that I don’t know about.

This was a pretty profound moment for me. And it wasn’t always easy, but from then on I was equipped with the knowledge that the only way out was through.

Struggling Is Not Failing

My healing journey felt like a war-the battles came in waves and I truly had to fight for my survival.

And the fight to heal is rarely graceful. Usually it’s messy, slow, and full of setbacks. I think more often than not, it feels more like struggling than healing.

For a long time I thought that struggling was failing, but it’s not. No matter what your struggle looks like, you’re surviving, learning, and making it through.

I also want to validate how exhausting the process can be. There were so many times that I felt like I wasn’t strong enough to keep going. And if you relate, I’d like to give reassurance that you don’t have to rush anything. You’re allowed to take breaks-to stop trying to move forward, for however long you need to before you’re ready again.

The Feeling I Always Ran From

Last week, I had an experience in therapy that gave me a strong desire to talk about this topic. I have been really struggling with feeling dependent on a coping mechanism that is harming me. I want so badly to stop, but I just keep going back to it.

One of my biggest triggers is feeling trapped. I see it pop up in pretty much every area of my life. It makes sense, during the most traumatic moment of my life, I was trapped in a car-powerless and defenseless.

So when my therapist told me that I should try feeling the feelings, I was a little confused. I already feel it, literally everywhere, all the time. That feeling has seeped into everything around me.

Something clicked in my brain when I realized that despite seeing it so often, I was really never feeling it at all. Every time something triggered that trapped feeling, I immediately numbed with a coping mechanism I hated.

It’s like, rather than just pulling a weed, I covered it up with dirt. And instead of going away like I thought it would, it just kept sprouting up everywhere, demanding to be acknowledged.

The Strength That Comes From Sitting With Pain

Healing doesn’t just mean the feelings get smaller and lighter. It also happens when you get stronger, more resilient, and more capable of handling the really hard to carry stuff. It doesn’t come in avoiding the pain-it comes from walking straight through it and discovering that you can.

So unfortunately, the only way out is through. The only way to prove to myself that I am strong enough to face these feelings, is simply to face them.

And when it feels like you’re not strong enough to face the next battle or continue fighting, I think it’s more important than ever to count the little wins-the small, sometimes almost invisible milestones that mark progress.

While most days it may feel like one step forward and two steps back, eventually you’ll look back and realize how far you have actually come.

If you’re in the thick of it, I hope you know that even when it doesn’t feel like it-you’re already doing the hardest part. You’re still here. You’re still trying. And that’s everything.