Healing Arcs Don’t Feel Honest to Me
These stories don’t offer closure. I’m writing what survival looks like when healing is partial, memory lingers, and love doesn’t fix it.
Author’s Note: This essay is part of a five-essay series on writing decisions and narrative constraint. Each piece explores the choices behind my novel without explaining the story, but to frame what it refuses to resolve.
I used to think the hard part was leaving an abusive relationship.
Fairytales on TV taught me that once a woman speaks up, finds her strength, and walks out, the worst is over. The pain fades. Her life opens up. If she’s lucky, there’s love. If not, there’s clarity. Either way, she lands on her feet.
But what comes after leaving is not relief. Fear doesn’t disappear. It changes shape.
I learned this from my own mother. And from the other countless women who left and still could not sleep. A woman might leave the abusive situation, but she is not untouched.
My father used to tell my mother he would douse her in gasoline and light a match.
She believed him. I did not. I thought she was being dramatic. Later, I learned that Howard Larcell Streeter set Yolanda Buttler on fire. The cases kept coming. Michael Slager was captured on camera setting Judy Malinowski on fire.
My mother’s fear was real, something I had refused to imagine. I was forced to accept that there were no clean exits.
I spent years in therapy. Some things helped. Others did not. Trauma still informs my reactions. It still shapes my decisions. Even in the happiest moments, there are scars I cannot touch without pain.
Healing does not arrive on a schedule and is never magically complete.
Escape doesn’t come with a happiness warranty.
The female characters I write are not symbols.
They live through abuse, but not in ways that are always satisfying. Sometimes that looks like strength. Other times, it looks like shame. Often, it looks like contradiction. They keep going because stopping is not an option.
Their choices are not clean. They do not fight back when expected. And they make mistakes that cannot be undone. They carry guilt that does not resolve into growth.
I do not write redemption arcs because I do not believe pain turns itself into wisdom. Some experiences change you without improving you. Some losses do not produce insight. They simply stay.
Romance does not fix anything in these stories.
Love exists, but it does not rescue anyone. It does not heal trauma or erase fear. Love often reveals where the damage still lives. Sometimes, it only adds pressure.
My characters are challenged by it. Sometimes they survive it. Other times, they lose it. If healing happens, it happens because they choose honesty with themselves, not because someone else carries them through.
Love doesn’t neatly tie it all together. It lives alongside the messiness.
The reader will not reach the last page and feel fixed.
The women in my stories do not win. They continue, build lives that include scars, anxiety, and quiet joy. They find happiness without erasing what came before.
This is what survival looks like when healing is partial. When happiness exists alongside memory. When pain does not end but becomes manageable.
These stories are not built to heal anyone.
They are written in the hope that readers may feel less alone in the parts of themselves that never resolved.
I owe the reader trigger warnings and honesty.
I grew up believing you finished the book you started, no matter how much it hurt. I no longer believe that. I include warnings because trauma is real, and not everyone is in a place to revisit it.
After that, I owe readers honesty.
Once someone chooses to read, I will not soften what my characters face. I will not pretend survival is graceful or healing is complete. I will not offer comfort I do not believe in.
Some readers will turn away. That is understood.
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