When people think about grief after childhood trauma, they often think it’s limited to sadness over the childhood you lost or the childhood you could have had if not for your trauma. While that can be part of it, what many people don’t realize is that grief during healing can take many different forms, and it looks different for everyone.
Do I grieve my abuse? Yes, of course. I believe I’ll always carry some level of heaviness over what happened to me. But what I didn’t expect was the grief that came later—the kind that had nothing to do with abuse. Some of the sadness I experienced surprised me so much that I didn’t even recognize it as grief at first.
My hope with this post is to shed light on some of the realities of healing. There is so much uncertainty that comes with recovering from trauma, much of which isn’t often talked about among survivors. I want to break some of the stigma surrounding healing by sharing the difficult and hopeful parts of my journey. Most importantly, I want to remind anyone that healing is possible, and living a fulfilled life can exist after trauma.
Content Note: This post discusses childhood trauma, grief, emotional neglect, and healing. Please read at your own pace and take breaks if you need them. My experiences are personal and may not reflect everyone’s healing journey.
In This post, I reflect on:
- Healing didn’t just bring relief—it brought grief too
- I was grieving more than my childhood
- The hardest part was realizing none of it could be changed
- Grief didn’t mean healing was failing or I was healing wrong
Healing Didn’t Just Bring Relief—It Brought Grief Too
I thought my healing journey would immediately bring forth lightness, the ability to breathe easier, and clarity. I expected to experience the emotional equivalence of the sun breaking through the clouds on a dark and stormy day. Although I eventually felt lighter, I was initially met with uneasy feelings, which continue to trickle into my life today.
Eventually I realized that this uneasy feeling that I couldn’t name was actually grief. When I felt safe enough to process my past, I felt hopeful, but I didn’t expect the heaviness that appeared. I thought I knew exactly what to expect in this journey, but I had it all wrong. My healing journey is discussed in detail in my post What Healing Actually Felt Like.
I Was Grieving More Than My Childhood
Grief was incredibly difficult for me to process. Understanding why these feelings showed up while I was making positive changes from my childhood trauma was confusing. Looking back now, I realize that I wasn’t grieving one thing. I was mourning many different losses all at once. Some were obvious, while others took years for me to recognize.
Navigating the Unknown
I held grief over navigating the unknown alone. Once I realized that my experience wasn’t universal, and those who had similar experiences oftentimes didn’t speak up (similar to myself), I very quickly realized that although I had supportive people around me, much of my healing was something I had to navigate on my own.
The concept of healing from trauma was new to me, and I didn’t know where to begin, or even if I was doing things “the right way.” The unfamiliarity itself brought sadness. Change felt scary, I couldn’t predict what memories or emotions would surface, and I couldn’t imagine navigating all of that on my own. If you’re at the beginning of your own healing journey and don’t know where to start, I share the first step that helped me in my post, How to Start Healing From Childhood Trauma.
The Person I Could Have Been
I mourned person I could have become in both my personal life and in relationships. Through my trauma, I developed personality traits including hypervigilance, the need for control, people-pleasing, and a fear of change that I still use to cope today. While these traits kept me safe at the time, I now see that they can be barriers that prevent me from being the person I want to be.
In addition, most of my life had been consumed by thoughts of my abuse. I spent countless hours overthinking, feeling sad for myself, ruminating, replaying scenarios, questioning myself, feeling angry, and wondering how things could have been different. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what those hours could have been spent on if I hadn’t experienced abuse.
- Would I have taken up a new hobby or played sports?
- Would I have been more social, or even an extrovert?
- Would my interests have been completely different?
- Would I have taken more risks and challenged the norm?
- Would my relationships with my loved ones have been be healthier?
Even today, these questions still cross my mind. The truth is, I’ll never know the answers. It’s something that’s hard to accept, but is a harsh reality.
Missed Milestones
Many of my milestones felt different because of my trauma. To me, they didn’t feel as grand as they should have been and they felt like just another day I wanted to get through.
I hit rock bottom the year that I completed my Master’s degree. Although graduating was a massive personal accomplishment, I refused to celebrate it and didn’t even attend my graduation ceremony as this period was something I was just trying to survive, let alone celebrate. I didn’t believe I deserved good things, and it felt more like checking off a box on a list of things I needed to complete.
Relationship With My Parents
One of the hardest things to understand was the grief I carried over my relationship with my parents. To this day, I truly believe I couldn’t have asked for better parents, and I wouldn’t change them for anything.
At the same time, I still mourn some of the choices they made that I continue to question today. I’ve realized that I grieved the childhood I should have had.
When I finally opened up to my parents about the abuse, I wasn’t met with the unconditional support I desperately needed. Instead, I was told never to tell anyone else what had happened. As a girl who just needed to hear that she was safe and that none of it was her fault, I was left feeling even more isolated. I began to believe that I’d done something wrong by speaking up.
What made it even harder was that my abuser continued to be invited to family gatherings. My parents didn’t want to disrupt the family dynamic or give anyone a reason to suspect something had happened. While I understand why they made those choices, it didn’t change how much they hurt.
That hurt eventually became grief, and over time, resentment. If I’m being honest, there are still moments when I carry some of that resentment today.
Looking back, I believe they responded in the only way they knew how. They were doing the best they could with what they had been taught growing up. While I wish some things had been handled differently, I don’t believe those decisions came from a lack of love. I explore this idea further in What is Emotional Neglect in South Asian Families.
Even with that understanding, I still grieve for the little girl who simply needed her parents. Thinking about her still fills me with sadness because the people who should have comforted and protect her couldn’t be there in the way she needed.
Grief for Myself
Most of all, I felt grief for the little girl that I once was. Once I was able to separate myself as an adult from the child I used to be, I began to view ‘little me’ as her own person. Looking at her from an outside perspective, while knowing everything she had to overcome, brought a flood of sadness and grief that I had never fully allowed myself to feel.
Now that I’m a mom, those feelings have only deepened. When I imagine my own children in her shoes, I can’t help but grieve for the little girl who should have never had to carry those experiences to begin with.
I spent years surviving over living, and I still have days when I feel sadness over the life I could have, and should have had. But something that continues to give me hope is knowing there’s still so much life left to live. Dwelling on the life I could have had will only take away from the future I can still create for myself.
The Hardest Part Was Realizing None of It Could Be Changed
It was really difficult for me to accept that life moves on. You can go through the hardest moments of your life and desperately need a second to catch your breath, but the world doesn’t wait for anyone. The sun still rises and sets every day like clockwork, no matter what you’re going through. Part of my grief came from accepting this reality.
You only get 18 years of being a child. To me, it felt like I lost all 18 of those years. I was either consumed by thoughts of my abuse or trying so hard to suppress my childhood memories out of fear of what they might bring back. As painful as it was, I also had to learn how to move forward despite everything I had lost.
Today, healing isn’t about getting my childhood back. Accepting my past doesn’t mean giving up. To me, acceptance is just acknowledging what happened so I can stop fighting against it and start living the life I want to live.
Sure, there are still days when I feel like I’ve lost a good chunk of my life because of my abuse. But I’ve also realized that if I continue to let guilt, shame, and regret consume me, I’ll only lose more years. I refuse to let my abuse take any more from me than it already has. I can’t get back the years I spent carrying guilt and shame, but I can live life with purpose from now on.
Grief Didn’t Mean Healing Was Failing or I Was Healing Wrong
When I began my healing journey and experienced intense grief, I believed something was wrong with me. When healing didn’t work immediately, I felt like I didn’t deserve it because to me, the abuse was my fault. The self-blame didn’t disappear overnight. If you’ve ever wondered why survivors blame themselves, I explore that in my post, Why Survivors Blame Themselves. Not only did it feel like I was taking steps backwards, but I was also experiencing more intense depressive feelings than when I was living the status quo.
Over time, I realized that grief meant I finally had room to feel and process my trauma exactly how I was supposed to. Avoiding it was what had kept me stuck.
Whenever I thought about my abuse and experienced vulnerability, I was quick to distract myself to avoid feeling sad. Looking back, I now recognize many of those reactions as trauma responses. I explain them in more detail in Common Trauma Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn Explained. I experienced something so traumatic, and didn’t allow myself to feel. The only way over the bridge was to open the floodgates, let the emotions out, and slowly move forward.
My perspective on grief has completely changed. I now see it as a normal part of the healing, where healing and grief can coexist. To me, grief means I care. It means the things I’m mourning mean so much to me, and it’s proof that I was finally facing reality. I’ve learned that grief didn’t erase any progress, nor did it push me backwards. It moved me forward by allowing me to finally feel the emotions I inevitably had to feel to heal.
Final Thoughts on Grief During Healing
I continue to experience grief from time to time, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve taken steps back in my healing journey. In fact, I see it as an indicator that I am actually making progress towards my goal.
Healing has changed my relationship with grief where I no longer fear it, but am aware that any negative feelings I experience are only temporary and will pass. Sure, the losses can’t be replaced, and I’ll never know what I missed out on as a result of my trauma.
But I believe I’ve gained a lot more: Mainly the understanding that I can get through absolutely anything, and any hard moment is temporary.
