Ang, Toronto, 41
Grief
I think one of the strangest things about my mental health journey is that, from the outside, I have always looked incredibly functional. I built a successful career, travelled, maintained friendships, showed up for my family, took care of other people, and kept moving forward. I became very good at being the person who could handle things.
What I didn’t understand for a long time was that functioning and actually being okay are two very different things.
The last few years have forced me to understand myself in ways I never expected. A relationship I deeply believed would be my future became one of the most painful experiences of my life. There was love, but there was also betrayal, inconsistency, separation, reconciliation, and eventually the loss of not only a person, but an entire future I had imagined. It brought things to the surface that went far beyond heartbreak: anxiety, attachment and abandonment issues, low self-worth, and the need to feel chosen.
I slowly abandoned myself while desperately trying not to be abandoned by someone else.
What surprised me most was how physical and consuming the grief of losing this person could become. There were periods when I could understand something intellectually — I could know that a situation wasn’t healthy for me, know what my therapist would say, know what boundary I needed — and still feel completely different emotionally. I learned that knowing better doesn’t automatically make you stop hurting. Sometimes your mind understands the ending long before your body feels safe enough to accept it.
I’ve done a lot to heal. Therapy has been a huge part of my life. I’ve explored spirituality, attachment, somatic work, writing, travel, and different ways of understanding myself. I’ve travelled alone and discovered versions of myself I had forgotten existed. I’ve learned to set boundaries. I’ve learned to speak up. I’ve learned to leave situations I once would have fought desperately to save. I’ve also had moments when I’ve gone backwards. Missed people I knew weren’t good for me, questioned myself, wanted relief more than growth, and wondered why all the “work” wasn’t making the pain disappear faster.
And I think that’s something I wish we talked about more: healing doesn’t always feel like healing while you’re
inside it.
Sometimes it feels lonely.
One of the hardest realizations for me has been how much mental health is connected to relationships and community. There have been moments when I wasn’t looking for somebody to fix me or give me advice — I just desperately needed somebody to sit beside me in what I was experiencing. There were times I reached out, and nobody showed up in the way I needed. That kind of loneliness taught me how dangerous isolation can become.
Sometimes people return to unhealthy relationships not because they don’t know better, but because an unsafe connection can temporarily feel less frightening than having no connection at all.
I’ve had to rethink what strength means because of that. I used to think strength meant independence — being able to handle everything myself, needing very little and continuing to function no matter what was happening internally. I don’t believe that anymore.
I think strength can also mean admitting, “I’m not okay today.” It can mean asking someone to stay. It can mean allowing yourself to need community without believing that makes you weak.
I’m currently in another period of enormous transition. Parts of my old life have ended, while the next version hasn’t completely arrived yet. My career has changed. I’m preparing for the possibility of living abroad. I’m travelling. I’m rebuilding parts of my identity. I’m learning what relationships feel like when I’m no longer willing to abandon myself to keep them.
And I’m learning how incredibly uncomfortable it can be to sit in the space between who you were and who you’re becoming without immediately reaching for something — or someone — to fill it.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I’m learning how to stay with myself there.
Part of that journey also inspired me to create Seen & Safe, a small space where I write about healing, relationships, loneliness, self-worth and the parts of being human that we often hide. I didn’t create it because I’ve figured everything out. Quite the opposite. I created it because I’m still figuring it out, and because I know what it feels like to desperately want someone to say, I see you. You’re allowed to tell the truth here.
If there’s anything I want other people struggling with their mental health to know, it’s that you don’t have to turn your pain into an inspirational story before you deserve compassion.
You don’t have to have the lesson yet.
You don’t have to be “healed.”
You don’t have to understand why something happened before you’re allowed to grieve it.
Some days healing looks transformative. Other days it looks like getting through the day without abandoning yourself. Both count.
I’m still learning. I’m still grieving some things. I’m still becoming. There are parts of my future that I genuinely don’t know yet.
But I’m beginning to understand that maybe mental health isn’t about reaching some permanent state where nothing hurts or triggers you anymore. Maybe it’s about building enough trust with yourself that when life hurts again, you know you won’t leave yourself behind.
Check out more of Ang @seen_and_safe_collective