Breaking the Cycle: From Numbing to Healing

We live in a fallen world, and because of that, we live broken lives.

For the past few weeks, I have been thinking about my brokenness, my numbness, and why I feel hollow.

I’m 34, and I have been through the gambit of trauma.

Recently, I spoke with my mom about my childhood and her perspective on raising me.

She admitted she could have done better.

I brought up the N-word, which we will not blame her for.

Neglect is powerful, and it has lasting effects.

I love my mom, and she did everything she could to raise me.

But love and effort don’t erase wounds.

Some pain lingers, shaping the way I see the world and myself.

I have the responsibility not to eat emotionally, get high, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or watch porn.

It’s not wise to blame her for the choices I make as an adult.

It’d be immature to blame my parents for who I am today.

And yet, I can’t deny that the foundation of my struggles was built long before I had the awareness to fight back.

Interestingly, the core reason I run to those vices is that I have a deep emotional pain from my childhood.

I use those vices to numb the pain.

But the truth is, numbness isn’t healing.

It’s just silence.

A temporary escape that eventually leads me back to the same hollow place, the same aching questions.

So, where do I go from here?

I know I can’t change the past.

I can’t rewrite the neglect or undo the damage.

But I can choose how I respond to it now. I can lean into the discomfort instead of drowning it.

I can face the pain with something more significant than a temporary fix.

Maybe healing isn’t found in avoiding the pain but in acknowledging it, sitting with it, and letting God into the places I’ve spent years trying to shut down.

Maybe it’s time to stop numbing and start feeling.

Because the pain that shaped me does not have to define me.

Because I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.

Because I am still here.

And as long as I’m here, I have a choice: to stay buried in the weight of my past or to rise from it.

I choose to rise.