💚 HEALTH & WELLNESS: HAVE YOU HEALED? Sometimes Our Actions Tell a Different Story
WRITER: MISS HOLLYWOOD
Miss Hollywood is a writer, media host, published author, recording artist, songwriter, public speaker, and creative director. She is the founder and host of The Chat with Miss Hollywood and The Daily News Wrap with Miss Hollywood, where she covers breaking news, entertainment, crime, trending stories, personal experiences, and conversations that deserve to be heard.
HAVE YOU HEALED?
That's my question for you today.
Not have you moved on?
Not have enough years passed?
Not do you still think about what happened?
I'm asking you something completely different:
Have you actually healed?
And have you ever stopped to question some of your own behaviors, choices, reactions, or responses to situations throughout your life?
Have you ever asked yourself:
Why did I react like that?
Why do I always do this when someone gets too close to me?
Why is it so hard for me to trust people?
Why do certain situations bring out a completely different side of me?
Why do I keep repeating the same patterns even when I know they aren't good for me?
Sometimes we spend so much time analyzing what everybody else has done that we never stop long enough to analyze ourselves.
And Hunnii… I had to learn that one personally.
SOMETIMES WE THINK WE'RE FINE
We all come from different backgrounds, but I believe many of us have more in common than we realize.
People experience difficult, painful and traumatic situations every day, but we don't all respond to those experiences the same way.
Some people may turn to drugs or alcohol to numb what they're feeling. Some may engage in risky sexual behavior or find themselves living destructively.
Others may develop unhealthy patterns—compulsive lying, manipulating situations, constantly creating conflict, pushing people away, or engaging in other behaviors they may not immediately connect to something painful from their past.
And then there are the quiet ones.
The people who cry when nobody is around.
The ones who struggle to maintain friendships.
The ones who don't completely trust anyone.
The ones who keep people at a distance because somewhere inside, getting too close to somebody doesn't feel safe.
And then there are those of us who believe:
“I'm strong. That happened a long time ago. I'm good.”
But are you?
I don't ask that judgmentally.
I'm asking because I had to ask myself the same question.
I THOUGHT I WAS BIGGER THAN WHAT HAPPENED TO ME
Let me make something clear.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a psychologist or therapist, and I'm not attempting to diagnose anyone reading this.
I'm speaking as a human being and as someone who experienced abuse as a child.
For the longest time, I genuinely believed I was bigger than what had happened to me.
I survived it.
I grew up.
I kept moving.
And because I wasn't sitting around every day thinking about my past, I assumed it wasn't affecting my present.
It took me years to realize that wasn't necessarily true.
I struggled with self-esteem.
I lived in denial about certain things.
I was a fighter.
I didn't always take relationships as seriously as other people may have thought I should.
And underneath a lot of that was something I hadn't completely recognized:
I had a very difficult time trusting people.
MY ACTIONS WERE SAYING WHAT I WASN'T
Looking back, I realize I dealt with some of my pain by simply not acknowledging that it was there.
I wasn't consciously walking around thinking, I went through this, so now I'm going to behave this way.
That's not how it worked for me.
I thought I was living my life.
But some of my actions were expressing things that I had never dealt with internally.
Other people may not have understood why I behaved certain ways.
But here's the thing:
I didn't understand it either.
That's what took me years to figure out.
Sometimes your mouth is saying, “I'm fine.”
Your mind is saying, “I'm over it.”
Your life is saying, “That was years ago.”
But your actions may be telling an entirely different story.
HAVE YOU EVER CONNECTED THE DOTS?
I don't know you.
I don't know what's inside your head or your heart.
And I'm certainly not going to tell you that every behavior you have is connected to something traumatic from your past.
But I am going to challenge you to ask yourself whether you've ever really examined the connection.
How do you handle conflict?
How do you respond when somebody hurts your feelings?
Can you accept genuine love without becoming suspicious of it?
Do you push people away before they have an opportunity to leave you?
Do you constantly expect betrayal?
Do you sabotage healthy relationships?
Do you become angry when you're actually hurt?
Do you find yourself repeating behaviors you know aren't healthy?
Do you constantly need validation?
Or maybe you're the complete opposite.
Maybe you've convinced yourself that you don't need anybody at all.
Why?
Don't immediately answer.
Think about it.
Because sometimes the answer we give quickly is the answer we've been telling ourselves for years.
CONDUCT AN INTERNAL ASSESSMENT
This is my challenge to you.
Sit down somewhere quiet and conduct an honest assessment of yourself.
Not your mother.
Not your father.
Not your ex.
Not your friends.
Not the person who hurt you.
YOU.
Look at your actions throughout your life.
Look at your relationships.
Look at the things that trigger you.
Look at the situations where your reaction didn't necessarily match what was happening.
Look at the mistakes you've repeated.
Look at the walls you've built.
And instead of immediately defending yourself, ask:
Why?
Why do I respond this way?
Why does this bother me so deeply?
Why do I have difficulty trusting?
Why am I repeating this pattern?
What am I protecting myself from?
And perhaps the biggest question of them all:
HAVE I ACTUALLY HEALED… OR HAVE I JUST LEARNED HOW TO LIVE WITH THE PAIN?
That question hit me differently when I finally asked it of myself.
HEALING DOESN'T ALWAYS LOOK THE WAY WE THINK
For years, I think I confused functioning with healing.
I could work.
I could laugh.
I could love.
I could create.
I could accomplish things.
I could get up every morning and live my life.
So surely, I was fine, right?
Not necessarily.
Being able to function doesn't automatically mean we've dealt with everything we've experienced.
And recognizing that doesn't mean we suddenly have to view ourselves as damaged.
For me, it meant I finally had an opportunity to understand myself better.
I could look backward and say:
Okay. Now some things make sense.
And once something makes sense, you have an opportunity to decide whether you want to continue carrying it the same way.
THE CHANGE HAS TO BEGIN WITH US
Our past may help us understand certain things about ourselves.
But understanding isn't the same thing as giving ourselves permission to hurt other people or continue destructive behavior.
At some point, we have to decide what we're going to do with what we've learned.
Sometimes that means changing our behavior.
Sometimes it means apologizing.
Sometimes it means establishing boundaries.
Sometimes it means finally allowing ourselves to trust.
Sometimes it means admitting that we're not as okay as we've been telling everybody.
And sometimes it means seeking professional help to work through things we don't know how to unpack by ourselves.
There's no shame in that.
But before change can happen, there has to be honesty.
And sometimes the hardest person in the world to be honest with is yourself.
So,
I'm going to leave you with the same question I started with:
HAVE YOU HEALED?
Don't answer it for me.
Don't answer it for Facebook.
Don't answer it for your friends.
Don't answer it because you think you know what you're supposed to say.
Answer it for yourself.
And if the answer happens to be, “Maybe not completely…”
Perhaps that's not the end of your story.
Maybe that's where your healing actually begins.
I will definitely revisit this conversation because I believe there's so much more for us to talk about.
Until then…
Happy healing. ❤️
A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS ❤️
This article reflects one survivor's personal experience and perspective and is not intended as medical or mental-health advice.
If something you read here brought up difficult emotions, you don't have to work through them by yourself. Consider reaching out to someone you trust or a qualified mental-health professional.
If you are in the United States and experiencing emotional distress, a mental-health or substance-use crisis, or thoughts of suicide, you can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911 or seek emergency medical assistance.
Your experiences matter. Your healing matters. And asking for support is a form of taking care of yourself.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Miss Hollywood is a writer, media host, published author, recording artist, songwriter, public speaker, and creative director. She is the founder of The Chat with Miss Hollywood, an independent digital media and entertainment platform, and host of The Daily News Wrap with Miss Hollywood.
Beyond entertainment and news, Miss Hollywood uses her platform to share personal experiences and create honest conversations about survival, self-reflection, personal growth, and the realities people often endure behind closed doors.
Through her writing, Miss Hollywood encourages readers to have the difficult conversations—with others and with themselves—that can lead to greater understanding and personal growth.
For more stories, conversations, and original programming, visit TheChatWithMissHollywood.com.
Comments