Dear Peter:

I really appreciate the metaphor you shared.

Trauma is the river—it represents emotional struggle, turbulence, and pain that can pull someone under or make movement difficult. It’s something a person gets caught in, especially when past wounds are triggered.

Healing is the bridge—it offers a way across the pain rather than staying trapped in it. The bridge symbolizes the work of transformation, transcendence, and moving forward.

The key idea here is that the bridge exists, meaning healing is possible. But stepping onto it is another question. Sometimes, despite knowing it’s there, people stay in the river—maybe because the pain feels familiar, because crossing the bridge requires effort, or because they simply don’t feel ready to move forward.

The act of building the bridge represents the effort to transform and transcend past wounds, rather than being defined or confined by them.

You acknowledge that sometimes, you can transport yourself onto the bridge instantly, shifting your perspective and navigating past pain.

But other times, you don’t choose to do so—perhaps because part of you is still holding onto the struggle, or because stepping away feels difficult.

This raises a deeper question: Even when healing is possible, why do we sometimes resist it?

For me, I think I stayed in the river because I was alone. No one was there to help me out. What I needed was validation—someone seeing me in the river, hearing me, and telling me: “Yes, something terrible really happened to you.”

I experienced so much isolation and invalidation—comments like “Get Over It”—that I stayed in the river, waiting for connection and recognition.

I can’t emphasize enough how active invalidation in my life, starting with my mother’s massive dismissal of me, has kept me in the river.

Now that I reflect on it, even when I was validated, I rejected it because it didn’t match my own internal invalidation. I didn’t believe my own story.

The external voices that dismissed my experiences became internalized. Over time, I began to question myself: Was it really that bad, or am I exaggerating? Maybe I overreacted. Maybe I’m just too sensitive. Did I misinterpret things? And then, worse—the doubt was no longer a question: I deserved it.

To heal, I must trust my own story—recognizing that my experiences were real, valid, and meaningful, even if others refused, or still refuse, to acknowledge them.

I see now that I’ve been too attached to external validation while lacking the internal validation I truly need. Thank you, Peter, for helping me with this.

* Next, I will reply to your message from yesterday.

anita