Somewhere along the way we were taught that growth should feel empowering.
Peaceful.
Like clarity and confidence.
But sometimes growth feels like the exact opposite.
Sometimes growth feels like losing all the ways you used to escape yourself.
And suddenly realizing you can’t outrun what’s been inside you the entire time.

Growth.
I know I’m growing right now.
I also know this because I am incredibly uncomfortable.
Dysregulated almost daily. Restless. Irritated. Exhausted. A kind of discomfort that makes you want to crawl out of your own skin.
And I’m realizing something I never expected.
I may have been avoiding myself more than I ever admitted.
Anything I can grab.
Anything I can focus on.
Anyone I can pay attention to besides me.
Anything but sitting with myself.
And the frustrating part?
I’m aware of it.
I’ve said it out loud. I’ve verbalized it. I’ve watched myself do it in real time.
Some people say that means I’m thinking too much.
I’ve been told that more times this year than I can count.
But I don’t think this is overthinking.
I think this is growth.
Because how do you not think when a part of you is screaming?
There’s a younger part of me that feels like a child tugging on my shoulder.
Pulling at me.
Yelling.
Sometimes it feels like she’s spitting in my face.
And honestly?
I don’t want to deal with her.
The more I ignore her, the louder she gets.
My usual distractions — the external highs, the fantasies, the things that make me feel alive for a moment — are starting to wear off.
And underneath all of that…
She’s still there.
Screaming.
This is a new kind of lonely.
Not the loneliness of being without people.
But the loneliness of finally sitting with yourself and realizing how much pain has been waiting there the entire time.
And instead of compassion, my first instinct is anger.
I want to silence her.
Push her away.
Tell her to leave me alone so I can go back to the fantasy world I built.
But that fantasy world isn’t working anymore.
And maybe that’s the point.
Growth often doesn’t feel peaceful. In fact, psychologically it can feel like the opposite.
When we stop distracting ourselves long enough to become aware of our internal world, parts of us that have been ignored for years finally get the chance to surface.
In therapy we often call these parts younger parts, protective parts, or the inner child.
These parts learned early in life how to survive. Some learned to chase validation. Some learned to escape into fantasy. Some learned to stay busy, productive, helpful — anything but still.
But when those strategies stop working, the emotions underneath finally get louder.
What many people interpret as “falling apart” is often the nervous system finally allowing feelings that were pushed away for a very long time.
And that can feel incredibly destabilizing.
Not because you’re broken.
But because you’re finally paying attention.
Maybe growth doesn’t look like becoming calm, wise, and enlightened overnight.
Maybe growth looks like this.
Messy.
Uncomfortable.
Raw awareness of the parts of ourselves we spent years trying to outrun.
Maybe growth is the moment you realize the screaming part of you isn’t trying to destroy you.
It’s trying to be heard.
And sometimes healing doesn’t begin with loving your inner child.
Sometimes it begins with realizing how much you resent the part of you that needed love in the first place.
And maybe the real beginning of growth…
is when you stop running long enough to hear what that part of you has been trying to say all along