Recently I spoke with a fellow survivor of narcissistic abuse (yes, survivor – I hate the word victim). She’s just starting out on her journey of recovery and reclaiming herself, and we were discussing how long it would have to take before she feels “back to normal”.

Not that I wanted to be the bearer of bad news, but, I told her that first of all, there’s no timeline (heck, I’ve been working on this myself for like six years and counting), and second of all, there is no such thing as going back to normal. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

It takes so much effort to break away from toxic relationships, to do what had seemed so impossible. It’s natural to want to be able to put that pain behind us quickly, to be able to move on. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts on the road through hell. Forcing the trauma down and away, rather than tackling it head-on, will not produce lasting, successful healing in the end. Compartmentalization is an important survival skill, but the goal is not to survive (which we’ve been doing for time out of mind already, haven’t we?), the goal is to truly, finally thrive. How long healing takes is anyone’s guess. A lot depends on how much time and work one puts into it. There will always be good days and bad days; eventually, the good ones outnumber the bad ones. Eventually, a new normal emerges.

I’ve begun to think of the healing process as starting to feel less like you’re drowning and more like you’re first treading water, then building a life raft, then turning that raft into a boat that you can steer. Storms are still going to come along and rock that boat, but you’re at the helm now. And, to quote Maya Angelou (I think), every storm runs out of rain.

Every storm runs out of rain.