[ShrinkPatient]

You never really can fix a heart

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[archipelago]

Hearts can be broken, but I also think they can mend. There is going to be a scar somewhere, but that doesn't keep the heart from working again. There is a tenderness there, but that makes us more tender in the world and hopefully with ourselves.

[Rive.]

Sometimes one can't even bandage it as life/experiences etc. only serve to make it bleed again. More like an aching, gaping wound.

[JaneC]

I've experienced moments where it feels like maybe it is possible that my heart was fixed or at least bandaged very well and beginning to work again. Unfortunately they were fleeting and ended with another scar or gaping hole over the existing scar.

I would like to think that it is not permanent, I believe in love....just that maybe it is not what I can expect nor deserve right now. In saying that......

I honestly believe wholeheartedly that everyone else is deserving of love and a healed heart, and that they will find that.

[anilam]

No way I could agree with this. Any emotional damage can be healed and overcome. It does change you but only you decide how.

I don't believe in absolutes, or that all people are the same. It might be possible for a heart to mend, but it might equally well be impossible. It's got nothing to do with personal choice, but to some extent it's to do with acceptance of the fact that some wishes will always lead to disappointment. Many people lead rich, wondrful lives without intimacy in love or friendship - which is inconceivable for many other people. Everybody is different.

We have to find out what works for us, and what is important for each of us to strive for. And accept that some things are not possible.

Of course a broken heart can heal.

[Freewilled]

My T told me "injured, not damaged," when I said I'm just damaged. I felt like there was no hope but he seems to think there is hope.....

[unaluna]

My t tells me im very easy to like. That reminds me of when a coworker told me, back in the '80's, "i dont understand why you're alone - you're fine." Difference being, i didnt know it back then and i was still getting messages from my family of origin that i was unlovable. Of course now im old and certain ships have long ago sailed. But the game is not over yet.

[ListenMoreTalkLess]

I don't know if I feel that I can ever be "fixed", but I have a much different perspective on healing than I used to. I know now that healing is possible-- maybe not complete, but the kind of healing that leads to a good life-- happiness and fulfillment in work, relationships, parenting with joy and compassion. A good life is possible.

There are some unusual trees along the seashore in a particular spot on the Northern California coast. It's very windy on the beach, and on the rugged cliffs overhead. I think it's the windiest spot in North America. The trees on the cliffs grow like upside down 'U's, bent by the force of the wind. They are beautiful, unusual, and having a good life there. Would they be taller, reaching towards the sun rather than the ground, if they were elsewhere? Most likely. Does it matter? I don't think so.

The other thing I've learned about being "bent" rather than "broken" (as Pink would say) is that I have come to appreciate that some of the best things about myself were developed as responses to my crappy childhood. I am grateful that my childhood bent me in the directions I have gone, rather than some others that would have been less satisfying. So I think you have to be able to see not only the wounds, but also the strengths that resulted from them.

[ShrinkPatient]

Originally Posted by ListenMoreTalkLess

I don't know if I feel that I can ever be "fixed", but I have a much different perspective on healing than I used to. I know now that healing is possible-- maybe not complete, but the kind of healing that leads to a good life-- happiness and fulfillment in work, relationships, parenting with joy and compassion. A good life is possible.

There are some unusual trees along the seashore in a particular spot on the Northern California coast. It's very windy on the beach, and on the rugged cliffs overhead. I think it's the windiest spot in North America. The trees on the cliffs grow like upside down 'U's, bent by the force of the wind. They are beautiful, unusual, and having a good life there. Would they be taller, reaching towards the sun rather than the ground, if they were elsewhere? Most likely. Does it matter? I don't think so.

The other thing I've learned about being "bent" rather than "broken" (as Pink would say) is that I have come to appreciate that some of the best things about myself were developed as responses to my crappy childhood. I am grateful that my childhood bent me in the directions I have gone, rather than some others that would have been less satisfying. So I think you have to be able to see not only the wounds, but also the strengths that resulted from them.

I hope that someday I have learned all these positive lessons. Right now it's difficult to fathom being fixed or healed.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts on being heartbroken. I don't have any answers, just lots of questions and doubts.

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[wotchermuggle]

I just wanted to share that I had a therapist that ripped my heart to shreds. I thought it would never heal. Time and a good therapist who understands me rather judging me has healed over that wound.

Honestly, if I can heal from that, I don't see why healing from anything else is impossible.

[Rosondo]

There are so many perspectives on this. Like some therapists think that nothing is fixable. We just develop new perspective on things and redefine situations. Like a breakup will create a hole and a different person will not fill that hole. That hole will always be there, even if you forget it. We just try to get going, holes and all, and focus on other things in our life and other possibilities. That we are peppered with holes does not mean we can not have a good or happy life. As long as we open ourselves to positive things. So pain will be there but also now new joys every day.

Other therapist think only some things will never get fixed. Like if you did not get the right kind of love from your mom when you were an infant. You can try to ignore it, get different perspective, but it won't matter, you will always have that "mother shaped hole", as someone in another thread named it. But that other things, like broken heart from a breakup, can be fixed. After all, you could find a new date but you can not go back to being two year old and undo damage from a psychotic abusive mother. It's like people who don't get enough food when growing up. They will have smaller bodies and are generally more sickly. Giving them food now won't change the matter. They will not start to suddenly regrow at age 50. Damage is done. But someone missing food for a few days can be back to normal at no time. That damage can be fixed.

There are other therapists who feel differently. That there is some hope for every problem, old and new. That psychological problems are different from biological ones. That they can all be fixed given right effort and time. They may be in our bodies or subconscious and may require more time but you can get to them. That love and care now can fix that hole. That a long term loving relationship with a lovely girl can make the guy close the hole his mother's behavior had left in him. That some of the psychoanalytic views that say otherwise are just unscientific BS. So be it a long term relationship with a good therapist or a good relationship in a person's life at present can fix the damage of the past.

And there are still others who believe there is nothing to fix to begin with. Only when we assume a hole, we assume something needed to fill it. Not the best example but if you see a baby just born, crying, and feel this is wrong, something to fix, then you try so hard to stop the baby from crying and then perhaps feel terribly disappointed that you failed. But maybe the baby crying is not a problem. Maybe it's nothing to be fixed. So maybe there is no hole. However you were treated, you are still whole. You have in you everything you need. You probably lost yourself. You started to think you were defective. You went out in search of things to fix yourself, be it ideologies, therapists, friends, whatever. That sense of alienation became the real problem in a way. This of course does not mean you were not hurt or you don't suffer. But it does mean that you are always whole. And that we forget that. And that the trauma caused you to forget that, to doubt that, to lose trust in that.

I don't know which of these views, if any, is right. Surely there are other views out there too. But I just try to work on my problems. And hope for the best.