Someone asked me once, genuine confusion in their voice, “But that was like two years ago. You’re not past that yet?”
I wasn’t past it. I was still in the middle of it. And in that moment something I’d been feeling for a while hardened into shame. Because apparently there was some timeline I was supposed to be following. Some schedule for healing that everyone knew about but me. And I was falling behind.
I’ve learned since then that this timeline is a lie. A well-intentioned, culturally baked-in lie, but still a lie. And I want to talk about it. Because I think a lot of people are walking around with this quiet shame about not healing quick enough, not moving on soon enough, not being past something that’s supposedly supposed to be behind them by now.
If that’s you, I want you to hear this: nothing is wrong with you. The timeline is the problem. Not you.
We’ve got this belief floating around that healing should be linear and time-limited. That grief has stages you march through in order. That trauma gets dealt with and then you’re finished. That after some certain number of weeks or months or years, you should be back to normal, whatever that means.
Part of this comes from misreading actual research. The famous “stages of grief,” for instance, were never supposed to be a linear checklist. They were observations about common experiences, not instructions for how healing should go. But somewhere along the way they turned into a roadmap people expected you to stick to. And if you looped back to anger after supposedly reaching acceptance? Something must be wrong with you.
Part of it is just discomfort. Other people want you to be okay because your pain is uncomfortable for them to sit with. Your continued struggling reminds them that terrible things happen and healing isn’t guaranteed. It’s easier for everyone if you wrap it up tidily and move forward.
And part of it is productivity culture. This idea that you should always be optimizing, improving, progressing. That sitting in pain is inefficient. That the point is to push through the hard thing as fast as possible so you can get back to being functional and productive.
None of this has anything to do with how humans actually heal.
Here’s what I’ve figured out, from my own life and from watching people I care about:
Healing doesn’t run on a schedule. It moves at its own speed, and that speed is different for everyone. It depends on what happened, how much support you’ve got, what other pressures are weighing on you, what resources you can access, your history, your biology, a thousand variables that can’t be flattened into a simple timeline.
Healing isn’t linear. You don’t march steadily from bad to better to okay to healed. You might have a great month and then get blindsided by a grief wave you thought was behind you. You might look fine on the outside while still processing something deep inside. You might feel okay for years and then have something crack open that you didn’t see coming.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. You can be healed and still remember. Still feel. Still have sore spots around certain dates or places or memories. Healing means you’re not run by the pain anymore. Not that the pain never happened.
Healing looks different depending on what it is. Some wounds close up relatively fast. Others take years. Some things you learn to carry rather than resolve. Some pain just becomes woven into your story rather than something you ever fully leave behind. All of that is allowed.
When someone tells you, including yourself, that you should be over something by now, there’s a message hidden underneath. It says: your pain is inconvenient. It says: you’re doing this wrong. It says: there’s a correct way to heal and you’re failing at it.
That message does actual damage.
It pushes you to hide. You stop bringing it up because you feel embarrassed. You perform being okay because that seems to be what people want. And the isolation makes everything worse, not better.
It makes you doubt yourself. Maybe there really is something wrong with you. Maybe you’re weak or broken or fundamentally defective somehow. Maybe everyone else heals normally and you’re the only one still stuck. These thoughts stack shame right on top of the original wound.
It makes you fight your own process. Instead of letting grief or processing happen at its own pace, you try to force it. Rush it. Will yourself into being past it already. And that resistance usually backfires, stretching out the exact timeline you were trying to compress.
The truth is, “should be over it by now” is almost never something you hear from people who actually understand trauma or grief at a deep level. It comes from people who are uncomfortable. Or from that critical voice in your head that absorbed all those cultural messages about acceptable timelines. It’s not wisdom. It’s pressure wearing a mask of concern.
Let me list some. Because maybe seeing them named will help you feel less alone.
Grief after someone dies. The cultural story says you’ll be “back to normal” after a year. The reality is that grief often gets heavier after that first year, once the shock fades and the permanence sinks in. For a lot of people grief shifts and changes over decades. Never fully gone.
Trauma recovery. Complex trauma, stuff from childhood, relational trauma. These don’t have shortcuts. Working through it can take years. You might think you’re finished and then uncover another layer. That’s not failure. That’s just how deep these roots grow.
Ending a long-term relationship. Whether you left or they did, pulling your identity apart from someone you built a life with takes serious time. Years, sometimes. And that’s true even if the relationship was bad for you. Sometimes especially then.
Losing a career or making a big transition. Job loss or leaving a whole career path involves this kind of identity grief. Figuring out who you are now and what you’re for doesn’t happen in a couple months, no matter how fast you find something new.
Coming back from burnout. Real burnout, not just being tired, can take way longer to recover from than people think. Months. Sometimes years. The nervous system doesn’t just flip a switch back to normal on command.
If you’re caught in shame about your timeline, here are some things worth considering.
Stop measuring yourself against others. You don’t actually know how long it took anyone else. Not really. You see the surface they show, not their middle-of-the-night moments. Everyone’s path is their own. Comparison is a dead end.
Find people who understand. A therapist, a support group, friends who’ve walked through similar things. Surround yourself with people who know that healing takes however long it takes. Their patience will teach you to be patient with yourself.
Argue back against the timeline. When that voice shows up saying “you should be past this,” practice answering it. “I’m healing at my pace.” “There’s no deadline here.” “I get to take the time I need.” It feels strange at first but it makes a difference.
Let yourself be wherever you are. This one’s the hardest. Stop fighting where you’re standing. You’re here. Right now. Still working through something. That’s the reality. Resisting it won’t make it go faster. Accepting it doesn’t mean you’ve given up. It just means you’re working with what is instead of against it.
I want to leave you with what I wish someone had said to me back when I was drowning in shame about not healing fast enough.
You’re not behind. There was no schedule you were supposed to follow. No deadline you missed. No race you’re losing.
Whatever you’re still dealing with? It was hard. Maybe it was the hardest thing you’ve ever been through. And you’re still here. Still showing up to it. Still putting one foot ahead of the other. That’s not failure. That’s courage.
Healing takes however long it takes. And however long it takes for you is exactly right for you.
You’re not too slow. You’re not defective. You’re just a human being, moving through something at a human pace.
That’s allowed.
