Why “Getting Over It” Doesn’t Work—and What Healing Truly Means

If you’re a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, chances are you’ve been told — directly or indirectly — that you should just “get over it.” Maybe people around you have tried to comfort you with “It was a long time ago,” or “You can’t change the past.” Maybe you’ve even said those words to yourself, hoping it would help the pain fade away.

But if you’ve noticed that no matter how hard you try to “move on,” something inside still feels unsettled, you’re not broken—and you’re not doing healing wrong. You’re human.

The Myth of “Getting Over It”

For many survivors, especially of childhood sexual trauma, survival once meant pushing everything down. You learned to carry on—to keep smiling, perform well, and hold it all together. You may have convinced yourself that if you could just stay busy enough, strong enough, or numb enough, the past wouldn’t matter anymore.

But “getting over it” often means disconnecting—from your feelings, your body, and even from the parts of yourself that needed care and protection the most. It can leave you living in a state of quiet tension: anxious but not sure why, easily triggered by things that seem small, or feeling emotionally detached from the people you love.

That’s because trauma doesn’t live only in memory—it lives in the body. The body remembers what happened, even when your mind tries to forget.

What Healing Actually Looks Like

Healing from childhood sexual trauma isn’t about erasing your past. It’s about creating safety in the present. It’s about gently reconnecting with the parts of yourself that had to disconnect to survive.

In trauma therapy, we focus on helping you build a sense of safety in your body before diving into the deeper work. Through approaches like EMDR, Brainspotting, and somatic therapy, we can help your nervous system process painful memories in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you.

Healing often includes:

• Learning to feel grounded in your body again, instead of living in constant fight-or-flight.

• Understanding that your coping mechanisms—people-pleasing, perfectionism, overthinking—were once forms of protection.

• Reclaiming your ability to trust yourself, set boundaries, and experience safety in relationships.

• Allowing yourself to feel joy, softness, and rest without guilt.

This isn’t about pretending the trauma never happened—it’s about finally being free from the ways it still lives inside you.

The Power of Compassion in Healing

True healing begins when you stop demanding perfection from yourself. Survivors are often incredibly hard on themselves: “I should be over this by now.” But trauma recovery doesn’t follow a timeline. You can’t rush safety, and you can’t force trust.

What helps is compassion—the willingness to meet your pain with kindness rather than judgment. Healing happens when you begin to understand that every reaction you’ve ever had made sense in the context of what you survived.

Therapy offers a space to explore that compassion safely—with someone who understands the complex ways trauma shows up, long after the event itself.

You Don’t Have to “Get Over It” to Heal

Healing childhood sexual abuse trauma is not about forgetting—it’s about remembering differently. It’s about no longer feeling defined by what happened, but instead, feeling grounded in who you are today.

You deserve to feel safe in your body, connected in your relationships, and hopeful about your future. And while that journey takes time, you don’t have to walk it alone.

If you’re ready to stop “getting over it” and start truly healing, therapy can be the place where that transformation begins. Whether you’re in Ottawa, Toronto, or Montreal, help is available—and your healing is possible.