Home→Forums→Share Your Truth→Why Telling Survivors to ‘Get Over It’ Is Harmful
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anita.
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May 12, 2025 at 1:24 pm #445658
anitaParticipantThere is a common belief that suffering from childhood abuse is a choice—that an adult either decides to “hold onto it” OR “move on” and “let go.” Some see prolonged emotional pain as a failure of resilience or strength, assuming that healing is simply a matter of willpower.
Why This Belief Exists:
* Lack of Understanding of Trauma – Many people don’t realize how deeply childhood abuse affects the brain, body, and emotions, often for a lifetime. Trauma isn’t just a memory—it’s wired into the nervous system, shaping a person’s emotional responses, relationships, and sense of self. It cannot simply be “let go of” by deciding to do so.
* Societal Narratives About Strength – “Moving on” is often glorified as proof of strength, while struggling with pain is wrongly viewed as weakness. In reality, working through trauma is an ongoing process—not a switch to flip off.
* Discomfort with Emotional Depth – People who haven’t experienced deep trauma may not understand its lasting effects. They may feel frustrated or helpless when someone continues to suffer, leading them to judge rather than empathize.
The Reality of Healing:
* Healing is not a choice—it’s a process. Trauma creates neurological and psychological wounds that cannot be erased with pure effort.
* Telling someone they “choose” to suffer dismisses their reality and can make them feel shame for struggling with pain that wasn’t their fault to begin with.
* Blaming survivors deepens their pain and often prolongs their suffering—empathy supports healing far more than judgment ever could.
* Trauma recovery is complex. Some wounds resurface even after years of therapy, and healing is never linear—it requires time, safety, and sometimes professional support.
Reframing the Narrative:
* Survivors do not “choose” to stay stuck. More often than not, they are working incredibly hard to heal, even if it isn’t visible to others.
* Acknowledging the impact of trauma does not mean someone is “dwelling” or “refusing to move on”—it means they are recognizing their pain so they can heal from it.
* Healing happens at its own pace—not on a timeline set by others who don’t fully understand the experience.
* Healing is not about flipping a switch—it’s about rewiring old wounds, creating safety, and finding stability in new ways.
How to Respond to Misguided Beliefs:
*If someone says, “You’re choosing to suffer,” reframe: “I’m working through layers of healing, and that takes time.”
* Trauma is not a reflection of weakness—struggling with it does not mean you’ve failed.
* Strength isn’t about “getting over it” quickly—it’s about continuing to show up for yourself, even when healing feels messy.
* If someone minimizes your pain, it’s okay to distance yourself or assert your needs: “I need support, not judgment. My healing is valid.”
* Surrounding yourself with people who respect your journey is crucial.
Letting Go, What It Really Means:
* Letting go isn’t about erasing trauma—it’s about learning to live with it in a way that doesn’t control you. Instead of trying to force healing, ask:
“How can I create safety, self-compassion, and peace within myself today?”
*** Your healing belongs to you—not to those who tell you how quickly you should move on or what suffering “should” look like. You are already moving forward simply by acknowledging your wounds and working to understand them 💙
anita
May 12, 2025 at 2:36 pm #445661
AlessaParticipantHi Anita
I think this is a really complicated and nuanced subject to talk about. I do agree with you about the difficulties with severe trauma.
I think that with anything, these things should be taken with a pinch of salt. The only freedom from suffering is to become a Buddha.
Everyone is different and has different experiences. Some people do have experiences of letting go in different ways. I don’t mean this in a bad way, so please bear with me. I truly believe that people don’t mean this in a bad way. They are just communicating what has helped them. I do understand that it can be hurtful and frustrating because it is not as easy as it sounds to do. Much easier to say the words than go through the difficult process of doing it. A journey which it seems to me you are on by the way.
I’m going to share some of my own experiences to show what these have looked like for me.
After many years of therapy and specifically prolongued exposure therapy I felt absolutely drained. Intense therapy isn’t easy for me and I was non-functioning going through it. It did stop the flashbacks spontaneously occurring. I just needed to take a break after it and not focus so much on the past to function better in my day to day.At my worst I would have emotional meltdowns. Crying spells for hours. And the thoughts would cycle. With a chronic pain condition that worsens with stress I was in agony. I had been practicing meditation during the times where I was more relaxed and I managed to quiet my thoughts in meditation. I thought, if I can do it in meditation. Perhaps I can do it outside of meditation. I was in a ton of pain and in the middle of a melt down. I literally thought to myself I can’t do this anymore. It is destroying me. STOP! And it did. It took practice to be able to do this consistently. It is very hard to let go of painful emotions.
Emotional meltdowns served a purpose for me. A child uses them to communicate and get attention. I figured out that simply asking for a hug is a better way to get comfort than crying.
In the past, my identity revolved around my conditions physical and mental. It was scary to realise that I had no identity outside of that. Who would I be without it? What if I tried and failed? There is nowhere to hide then. In time, I came to learn that there are many other parts of me and that fear was limiting my autonomy.
Letting go – the book. Allowing emotions to be without keeping the cycle going or repressing them. Letting them move freely and without attachment would be more accurate. This involves facing emotional blocks to letting go.
I will add that a baby when faced with what is distressing it will continue to cry even when comforted. Removing the baby from the stimulus and distracting the baby, due to their short attention span is far more effective.
Conflict for me has a specific role. Hearing the pain that other people express. Being respectful and gentle in communication, no matter what and expressing support even when I’m hurt.
I hope that it helps to see that letting go has many meanings and understanding that it is not a simple or easy process.
I’m sorry that people saying these things has hurt you. I hope that you don’t judge yourself about your own experiences. ❤️
I feel like many times people are uncomfortable with vulnerability, especially when it comes to perceiving the person as suffering. People don’t know what to say and don’t phrase these things very well. Ultimately, they just wish the person wasn’t suffering. Not such a bad wish really.
May 12, 2025 at 6:49 pm #445671anitaParticipantDear Alessa:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and personal experiences—I truly appreciate the depth and honesty in your response.
I completely agree that healing is not a simple, one-size-fits-all process. Everyone’s journey is unique, and what helps one person may not necessarily work for another.
I also appreciate your clarification on “letting go” and how it’s not about repressing emotions. That aligns with my own views as well—healing isn’t about forcefully discarding pain but about finding a way to coexist with it in a way that doesn’t dominate your life.
What you said about people being uncomfortable with vulnerability also makes a lot of sense. It’s true that many times, when people tell someone to “just let go” or “move on,” it’s not always meant to dismiss their pain—it may be more about their own discomfort in witnessing suffering. That’s an important point.
Thank you for contributing such thoughtful perspectives ❤️
anita
May 12, 2025 at 8:23 pm #445677anitaParticipantTelling survivors of severe childhood abuse to “Get Over It” is harmful regardless of the intent of the person saying it.
After all, parents who severely beat their children may have the intent to make their children stronger.. a positive intent, is it?
Intent does not make abusive behavior okay.
People need to process their trauma at their pace and not be pressured or criticized. The pressure and criticism is adding abuse on top of abuse.
If a person feels triggered by reading someone else’s processing (with no mention of the reader, nothing to do with the reader)- the reader should stop reading instead of criticizing.
This is what this thread is about: to support people processing their trauma and to discourage people from interfering with such processing.. regardless of the criticizer’s intent.
anita
May 12, 2025 at 9:42 pm #445681anitaParticipantTalking about processing, here I am processing some more-
-Oh, and if you have nothing supportive to say, dear reader, don’t say anything at all. Don’t rain on my parade.
So, processing more because there is so much to process, and because I find it so meaningful, refreshing . Actually, I enjoy it. So, here I go (having no idea what I will be typing next, whatever comes to mind/ heart):
Little anita- I see her round face in a short haircut, I see her like it was only yesterday. Dark brown hair, almost black. I see her eyes, dark brown with a little hazel in it. She has no idea what’s coming.
What’s coming, what..?
She has no idea. She doesn’t know.
The adult mind now has ideas, but little girl anita- she doesn’t know.
What is it, little girl anita, tell me.. please, tell me.
little girl anita says:…
I can’t hear her.
Tell me, tell me, little girl with short black hair, tell me.
She has no words.
Tell me, show me, what is it that you feel, what is the movement within you?
Zooming in on the image of little girl.. she doesn’t know. There is this desert of not-knowing, a desert of desperate alone-ness.
She is Alone.
So, you see, this alone-girl, she doesn’t need you to tell her to get over it.
To get over what?
She doesn’t know. She figures she is irritating you, figuring that something about her is not right with you.
She doesn’t know what it is. All she knows is that she is Alone.
No one For her, No one With her.
So.. do you find it in your heart, one who is reading this, to criticize and pressure this little girl?
I know, I am an adult typing this, but the one I am typing about- is a little girl.
A little girl that was crushed in so many ways by so many of you- Society.
Do you want to further hurt this little girl?
What if you look at everyone as little girls and little boys?
Don’t hurt us no more.
And yes, I don’t want to hurt us either. Let’s be Together in this Alone world of ours. Don’t be Against me. Be For me.
I want to be For you. It’s not about it being Me Or You. It’s about being Me and You, Together.
anita
May 12, 2025 at 10:33 pm #445683anitaParticipantMore: wondering, curious about what might come next, the Truth:
The Truth being that we are all little boys and little girls running in the playground, wanting, needing to be Part Of- Part of the Whole.
It’s Monday night here.
What time is it where you are at?
The ISOLATION, the emotional isolation is the root of all evil- says I.
What do you say?
We are not meant to be isolated, no, not the social species that we are.
What I wrote right above is It, the root of all social ills: the isolation of a social species.
It’d be okay for turtles to be somewhat isolated.
But not for us, humans. We are genetically meant to be Together, which makes Alone very painful, unnatural.
anita
May 13, 2025 at 10:28 am #445701
PeterParticipantHi Anita.
To be candid I don’t feel safe responding to this topic…
I wanted to express that I’ve experienced the reverse, a suggestion not to ‘get over it’, when I was communicating a intention to engage in the Buddhist practice of detachment and letting go’ in the last quarter of my life. To live out what I learned and make it mine. Some of the responses appeared to me to question that engagement as a denial of my past and the work I’ve done to process it…. (To be clear I read that into the responses, I own that, I do not feel their was any intentional desire for anyone to disavow my experience or the work I’ve done. In hindsight I assume the trigger was the ‘Universe’ trying to get me to notice something. (the person undermining my experiences was and has always been me, a way to avoid owning what I ‘know’.)
What you say is true: the people we reach out in our isolation and desire to be seen in forums such as this won’t always understand and sometimes will say hurtful things… yet we still reach out. Something brave and foolish and beautiful about that. It really is though suffering that we see each other.
So I find myself confused and hurt by what I feel as silencing…
Sometimes being supportive means pushing back and getting it wrong. I know I’ve appreciated the times you push back as I feel its only though tension that we learn. Unfortunate tension is usually painful.We all have our path to follow which we must honor… and if part of that path involves reaching out to others for understanding we need to allow for and expect disappointed and suffering that follows, a safe place to suffer.
Personally, I don’t feel the practice of detachment and ‘letting go’ are well understood so think a dialog on the subject could prove helpful, but I don’t know how to proceed without it being triggering.
Your a amazing person Anita, It is my hope that you receive the above in the spirit of love it was intended.
I just realized a trigger associated with being silenced in my past… which if I have projected onto this topic I ask for forgiveness.
May 13, 2025 at 11:58 am #445703anitaParticipantDear Peter:
I’m truly sorry that you felt unsafe or silenced 😔
When I said, “If you have nothing supportive to say, dear reader, don’t say anything at all. Don’t rain on my parade,” I was setting a boundary against dismissive comments. I was thinking about a rude and dismissive response I received in another thread recently—but I never meant to shut down thoughtful, respectful discussions.
You have always been kind and considerate—not dismissive or rude, not to me, not to anyone. I deeply value your perspective, and I want this to be a space where we can engage openly and honestly.
Of course, no one is perfect, and I don’t expect every response to be 100% validating or kind. I’m certainly not 100% anything myself. What truly frustrates me are comments that go out of their way to be rude.
I also find it so interesting that you received criticism for letting go, while I received criticism for the opposite. If a dialogue on detachment and letting go feels meaningful to you, I’d love to explore it together. What aspects of the practice do you feel are most misunderstood?
And one more thing—you are amazing, Peter. Please know that your voice is always welcome here. 💙
anita
May 13, 2025 at 12:05 pm #445704anitaParticipantSomehow the original post disappeared. I am resubmitting it here:
There is a common belief that suffering from childhood abuse is a choice—that an adult either decides to “hold onto it” OR “move on” and “let go.” Some see prolonged emotional pain as a failure of resilience or strength, assuming that healing is simply a matter of willpower.
Why this belief exists:
* Lack of Understanding of Trauma – Many people don’t realize how deeply childhood abuse affects the brain, body, and emotions, often for a lifetime. Trauma isn’t just a memory—it’s wired into the nervous system, shaping a person’s emotional responses, relationships, and sense of self. It cannot simply be “let go of” by deciding to do so.
* Societal Narratives About Strength – “Moving on” is often glorified as proof of strength, while struggling with pain is wrongly viewed as weakness. In reality, working through trauma is an ongoing process—not a switch to flip off.
* Discomfort with Emotional Depth – People who haven’t experienced deep trauma may not understand its lasting effects. They may feel frustrated or helpless when someone continues to suffer, leading them to judge rather than empathize.
The reality of healing:
* Healing is not a choice—it’s a process. Trauma creates neurological and psychological wounds that cannot be erased with pure effort.
* Telling someone they “choose” to suffer dismisses their reality and can make them feel shame for struggling with pain that wasn’t their fault to begin with.
* Blaming survivors deepens their pain and often prolongs their suffering—empathy supports healing far more than judgment ever could.
* Trauma recovery is complex. Some wounds resurface even after years of therapy, and healing is never linear—it requires time, safety, and sometimes professional support.
Reframing the Narrative:* Survivors do not “choose” to stay stuck. More often than not, they are working incredibly hard to heal, even if it isn’t visible to others.
* Acknowledging the impact of trauma does not mean someone is “dwelling” or “refusing to move on”—it means they are recognizing their pain so they can heal from it.
* Healing happens at its own pace—not on a timeline set by others who don’t fully understand the experience.
* Healing is not about flipping a switch—it’s about rewiring old wounds, creating safety, and finding stability in new ways.
How to Respond to Misguided Beliefs:*If someone says, “You’re choosing to suffer,” reframe: “I’m working through layers of healing, and that takes time.”
* Trauma is not a reflection of weakness—struggling with it does not mean you’ve failed.
* Strength isn’t about “getting over it” quickly—it’s about continuing to show up for yourself, even when healing feels messy.
* If someone minimizes your pain, it’s okay to distance yourself or assert your needs: “I need support, not judgment. My healing is valid.”
* Surrounding yourself with people who respect your journey is crucial.
Letting Go, what it really means:
* Letting go isn’t about erasing trauma—it’s about learning to live with it in a way that doesn’t control you. Instead of trying to force healing, ask:
“How can I create safety, self-compassion, and peace within myself today?”
** Your healing belongs to you—not to those who tell you how quickly you should move on or what suffering “should” look like. You are already moving forward simply by acknowledging your wounds and working to understand them 💙
anita
May 13, 2025 at 7:12 pm #445709anitaParticipantIt is working for me, it is healing me, these stream of consciousness writings in the evenings.
– Trigger Warning; Insanity, Abuse.
I remember very well saying to myself when I was in my late teens or early 20s, that if I get to live one day without guilt, then my life would be worth it.
The guilt I referred to was the guilt over destroying my mother’s life. I was sure that I did because she told me so, she showed me so- crying and wailing and complaining histrionically, endlessly, about how I hurt her. She showed me her wrists that one time, or maybe more than one time, telling me that’s where she’d cut herself and bleed to death.. because of me.
I remember very well walking with her on the street and her threatening to jump in front of a truck and get herself killed.. because of me, because I said something wrong.
Fast forward to today, I understand that I was not guilty after all, no matter how many times she told me that I was.
It feels good, a relief, a huge burden off me.
I wish she didn’t guilt-trip me, and doing so massively, frequently, heavily. My life would have been so much better for it.
Oh, the shame too. If she didn’t shame me so thoroughly.. my life would have been so much better for it.
Shackled by shame and guilt didn’t make for a good life.
It’s a lot of loss, lots of life unlived. Life others lived. Not me.
It’s hard for me still to believe that my own mother had it in her to knowingly hurt me and enjoy it- that mild but undeniable smile on her face after she shot some especially spicy shaming words at me.
And yet, I loved her all along.
This is My Truth, My Story.
I am not Get Over it. I am going through it.
anita
May 13, 2025 at 7:14 pm #445710anitaParticipantI am not getting Over it. I am going through it.
May 13, 2025 at 7:51 pm #445711anitaParticipantPeter—do we share this in common? A Life Unlived? (Of course, no pressure to answer.)
Others—do we share this in common? Living too little because truly living was inconvenient for someone close, yet somehow distant?
It amazes me how people hurt people—with no real benefit, no lasting gain. Just a fleeting moment of satisfaction in seeing someone else suffer.
Sometimes I wonder: Is sadism, in its subtler forms—not the exaggerated, villainous kind we see in movies—actually a part of everyday life? Is it business as usual?
And I can’t help but ask— Is telling someone “Get over it” when they are hurting and deserving of empathy a subtle form of sadism?
anita
May 13, 2025 at 8:43 pm #445714anitaParticipantA Life Unlived
She placed the weight upon my skin,
A burden woven deep within.
Shame and guilt—a tether tight,
Stealing breath, dimming light.Each step forward overshadowed, overtaken by the past,
Whispers telling me no progress will last.
Dreams confined, a silent plea,
A life unlived, yet longing free.Yet somewhere deep beyond the haze,
A voice still flickers through the maze.
Not in chains, nor bound by night,
But reaching out—demanding… what?– To be continued.
anita
May 14, 2025 at 11:52 am #445732anitaParticipantMid-day Stream of Consciousness Writing (whatever comes to mind):
It’s about undoing the silence imposed on me.
I don’t mean a calm silence, I mean a turbulent silence, feeling tornadoes raging within me (my childhood experience) and saying nothing because no one is there to listen, and someone there to criticize and attack me for any word I might say “wrong”. It wasn’t safe to talk, to express.
Here, now: I talk, I express and it’s liberating!
It saddens me that there are people I care about whom I cannot reach. I need to give up the hope of reaching the unreachable, at the least- unreachable by me.
Goodbye unreachable people. I hope you thrive in relationships with people who can reach you in positive ways.
As far as my No 1 Unreachable Person, my mother, unreachable way before I was born to her- no one can or could have reached her. Her notion that she was the Victim and I- among many others- her Victimizer, was unshakeable. I remember her beating me, taking a break, looking at her hands and saying: “Look what you did to me! You made my hands hurt!”
To be clear, she was beating me, not the other way around. And she was beating me not because I assaulted her first in words or action.
I couldn’t reach her although I tried in so many ways, for decades after that one memorable beating. It just couldn’t be done.
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change”- the things and the people I cannot change. Stop Trying. All it does is keeping me hurt and angry, waiting to be liked and approved of by people who won’t.
anita
May 14, 2025 at 12:33 pm #445733anitaParticipantI just realized following the above post, that I never stopped trying to reach my mother, to make her change her mind about me. To make her think well of me. Only I’ve been doing it by proxy of others who resemble her in disliking me, disapproving of me, thinking badly of me, or just misunderstanding me.
It’s amazing. I didn’t know.
Giving strangers (people who don’t really care about me) so much power!
It’s the little girl in me still wanting, still needing a mother, a grownup to love me. A little girl who is older by far than the “mothers” I am chasing for approval, for recognition, Ha!
anita
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 