Many people expect healing to feel steadily better over time. Because of this, it can be frightening or discouraging when symptoms suddenly feel more noticeable, emotions feel stronger, or functioning temporarily becomes harder. Some people begin to worry they are “getting worse” or that healing is failing.
In reality, healing often increases awareness before it increases relief. Things that were previously minimized, avoided, disconnected from, or happening outside conscious awareness may become more visible. This can temporarily feel overwhelming, even when important healing work is occurring underneath the surface.
Healing often increases awareness before it increases relief
It might seem counterintuitive that healing could lead to a temporary worsening of symptoms. This can happen when you are noticing the symptoms more easily or having more awareness of the impact those symptoms are having on you. For instance, if you are part of a dissociative system, as you heal you may become aware of the switching or time loss that is happening, which you never noticed previously. As dissociative systems heal, dissociative barriers loosen or disappear; you become aware of the experiences that had been sequestered behind the dissociation. In some cases, this may mean having awareness of traumatic memories for experiences you’d never known about, which can cause a real feeling of disruption in what you thought you knew about your history.
Symptoms may feel “bigger” once they are no longer hidden
Sometimes, as you heal, it might seem as though the symptoms are increasing in severity. They might seem to be happening more often. Often, what is happening is that you are becoming more aware of symptoms that have been happening all along. That increased awareness can feel like a worsening of severity.
Old survival strategies may become less effective
As you progress in your healing, you gain increased awareness of symptoms in part because your old survival strategies become less effective. As dissociation loosens, fewer experiences are hidden by:
- numbing
- avoidance
- suppression
- overfunctioning
- perfectionism
- busyness
When old survival strategies become less effective, this can contribute to the feeling of the situation worsening. This is because the old strategies were familiar and predictable. The comfort of knowing how to respond to “X” with strategy “Y” is gone and new, effective strategies are not yet in place. This creates a temporary instability during the transition from old strategies to new strategies.
Healing can disrupt existing internal balance
Just as instability can happen when old strategies become less effective and new strategies aren’t established yet, healing can disrupt the internal balance of a dissociative system. Systems are organized around survival. As healing progresses, internal roles may change. For instance, a perpetrator-imitating part might learn to help protect in ways that don’t involve imitating the abuser. As healing progresses and dissociation lessens, previously hidden conflict among parts may become more noticeable to you. This conflict was already there, but your new awareness of it can make it feel like the conflict among parts is worsening.
Emotional surfacing can feel overwhelming
Dissociation may have kept some strong or overwhelming emotions out of your awareness. As dissociative barriers loosen, you may become newly aware of grief, anger, fear, sadness, and vulnerability. As the dissociative barriers decrease, you may find it harder than it used to be to avoid those emotions. While your regulation is likely to improve, increased emotional access usually happens first.
Increased safety can allow more awareness
As your healing progresses, your safety increases, making it less necessary to hide or control symptoms. Ironically, this can feel like symptoms are worsening as your healing progresses. With increased safety, your system may finally be able to process memories and emotions that it didn’t have bandwidth for when it was focused on survival.
Temporary destabilization does not mean failure
It is important to understand that temporary destabilization is just that: temporary. It can cause your symptoms to appear worse and healing can feel more chaotic, but it is not a true setback. Because it can happen during real progress, temporary destabilization can be an uncomfortable sign of healing.
Improvement is often uneven
Healing occurs irregularly and non-linearly. You may see progress in some areas long before you see it in others. And you may see two steps forward and one step back at some points as you outgrow old strategies and develop new, more effective strategies. Healing often happens in cycles, moving between progress and overwhelm. Sometimes healing seems to pause for a while as the nervous system adapts to the changes brought about from the healing.
What you’re experiencing is common in trauma healing
Many trauma survivors experience periods during healing where symptoms feel more intense, emotions feel harder to manage, or functioning temporarily becomes more difficult. This can feel frightening and may lead a person to worry that they are “getting worse” rather than healing.
In many cases, however, increased distress does not automatically mean healing is failing or that something is going wrong. Healing often involves becoming more aware of emotions, triggers, memories, needs, internal conflict, or exhaustion that were previously suppressed, avoided, or outside conscious awareness. While this process can temporarily feel destabilizing, it is a common part of trauma healing for many people.
Where to go next
- Visit the Understanding the Trauma Healing Process section of the website for more information.
- Is Healing Harder in larger DID Systems?
- Why Am I Working So Hard at Healing and Not Seeing Change Yet?
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