The dreaded "healing in a vacuum" rears its ugly head
I (33F) have been on a healing journey for 3+ years. I really thought I did everything right. Therapy, group, working through triggers, connecting to and emoting old repressed feelings, spending time on my own, finding new hobbies, consuming hundreds of hours of podcasts and books/readings and writing/journaling, building healthy friendships, improving family relationships (where not harmful).
However, I have been single this whole time (no dating, no sex). I thought with all the work I had done, I could finally handle my relationship with romantic love in a much healthier way. And I did at first. But, not too far along a very wounded childhood part has been coming out front and center, all impulse control gone, inhibitions extremely low. Like I'm watching her react to things and somewhere I'm like "oh that's crazy, don't do/say that" but then she sets my insides on fire and all caution is thrown to the wind. I didn't expect to be fully ready to run head on, but I thought I would at least be able to pause and work through my emotions in real time as I had been the last few years where everything else is concerned.
Obviously, there are unhealed parts of me still that need a lot more work. It just genuinely shocked and continues to shock me that these parts were lying dormant somewhere within me, completely undetected. That I was able to heal all of these surrounding parts, whereas these others were neglected (by unconscious avoidance). It's honestly knocked me on my ass and put me in a pretty bad place again- not gonna lie.
So, the phrase "healing in a vacuum" keeps rattling around my head in my quiet times. But goddamn is it scary and painful at this point in my progress to be feeling this way. I've broken it off and I just feel broken in a way that feels like a long lost friend- but one you spent a little too much time away from, one that feels foreign and out of place now.