🌱 Secondary Losses in Your Healing Journey
When we think of healing, many of us imagine steady progress, lightness, and relief — but in reality, healing can be unpredictable and messy, with ups and downs that aren’t always easy to navigate. And amid those complexities, there’s a tender side effect that often goes unspoken: secondary losses.
Secondary losses happen when a burden, struggle, or pain that has been with you for so long begins to lift. It’s wonderful — and yet strangely unsettling. Why? Because that familiar struggle has woven itself into your sense of identity. It’s been your unwanted but constant companion. When it starts to loosen its grip, a new set of feelings can bubble up:
- Grief for what’s leaving (yes, even pain can feel familiar).
- Fear of the unknown: “If I’m not struggling with this anymore, who am I?”
- Worry about relationships: “If I don’t need support anymore, will people drift away?”
These reactions aren’t setbacks — they’re completely understandable. They’re part of adjusting to change.
💡 A Real-Life Example
Imagine someone who has lived with bouts of severe depression, two or three times a year, for more than twenty years. Suddenly, after steady therapy, the intensity lessens. The frequency decreases.
This is huge. A beautiful change. But also, an incredible adjustment.
I’ve seen clients in this phase hesitate. Sometimes they feel dread coming to therapy, or they announce, “I think I’m fine now, maybe I don’t need this anymore.” And then, just as suddenly, anger, sadness, or irritability creeps back in. At times, they even convince themselves: “See? The illness is back in full force.”
What’s really happening? Often, it’s secondary loss at play — the nervous system clinging to the familiar, even when the familiar was painful.
🌸 Why Talking About It Matters
Bringing secondary losses into the therapy conversation is powerful. It normalizes the experience. It helps clients understand that these waves of grief, identity shifts, and fears don’t mean they’re “going backwards.” They mean something precious: healing is happening.
Healing isn’t just about letting go of pain. It’s about rediscovering who you are without it. And that’s big work. Brave work.
✨ Why I Love This Part of the Journey
Truthfully? This is one of my favorite phases to witness in therapy.
Because when secondary losses show up, it tells me something important:
➡️ You are shifting.
➡️ You are growing.
➡️ You are reclaiming your life.
And yes — it may feel strange, even scary, to imagine yourself without the old weight you’ve carried for so long. But that’s also the wonder of healing: discovering parts of you that were waiting underneath all along.
So if you find yourself grieving, doubting, or wondering who you’ll be without your struggle — know this: it’s not a setback, it’s a signpost. It means you are in motion, heading toward a freer version of yourself.