UNFILTERED: The Parts We Don’t Post

Healing Didn’t Make Me Softer — It Made Me Colder

They say healing is about becoming softer, gentler, kinder, more at peace.

But that’s not my story.

Healing didn’t make me softer. It made me colder.

Not in a cruel way. Not in the “I don’t care anymore” way. But in the “I finally see things for what they are” way.

I used to think softness meant goodness, that being understanding, forgiving, and endlessly patient made me whole. But really, it made me hollow. Because in trying to hold everyone else, I forgot how to hold myself.

I was so used to explaining people’s behavior that I stopped realizing I was excusing it. So used to loving unconditionally that I forgot love needs conditions to stay healthy. I called it empathy. But it was exhaustion.

Healing stripped that version of me bare. It made me sit with every time I said “it’s fine” when it wasn’t. Every time I accepted less just to keep someone close. Every time I mistook chaos for connection because it felt like home.

And when I started choosing peace, people called it distance. When I stopped over-explaining, they said I changed. When I stopped showing up the same, they said I fell off.

But what they didn’t understand is that healing didn’t just change how I love, it changed who I love. Because once you taste peace, chaos starts to feel like poison.

Now I don’t chase. I don’t beg. I don’t explain my boundaries to people who benefit from me not having any.

I still care, deeply. I still love, hard. But I don’t perform softness anymore to make other people comfortable.

There’s a quiet power in that kind of detachment. The kind that doesn’t need revenge, doesn’t need validation, doesn’t need to be understood. It just is.

So no, healing didn’t make me softer. It made me aware. It made me intentional. It made me colder in the eyes of those who only knew me when I tolerated being burned.

I’m not cruel. I’m cautious. I’m not distant. I’m discerning. And I’m not heartless, I’m just finally heart-protective.

Because the truth is… sometimes healing means closing doors that will never open the same way again. And that’s okay.

Cold doesn’t mean unfeeling. It means I’ve learned to save my warmth for people who can hold it without freezing me out in return.

Healing didn’t make me softer, it made me real. And real isn’t always warm. Sometimes, it’s quiet. Sometimes, it’s misunderstood. But always,.........it’s free.

With truth in my chest and peace in my boundaries, signed, the version of me that finally stopped explaining herself.

— The Serenic Mind