Mental Health, Wellness & Healing

When Healing Isn’t Linear — It’s Ancestral Disruption

Written by Victoria Range-Carr

April 17, 2025

What do you do when everything you’ve been taught… starts to unravel?

When you realize the lessons weren’t passed down with wisdom — but with wounds. That much of what you inherited wasn’t knowledge at all, but survival strategies in disguise. Beautifully packaged desperation passed from one generation to the next like heirlooms no one asked for.

This is what it feels like to live at the intersection of past and future — carrying the stories absorbed from 'before,' and holding the responsibility of 'what now.' It is emotional residue born from cognitive and emotional overload — but also a sign that you are searching, wrestling, and intellectually awake in the midst of that weight.

You're not just questioning your path. You're confronting the crumbling of generational beliefs — what was taught, internalized, and unknowingly passed down. And there’s a deep grief that comes with that realization: that what shaped us was built on survival, not truth; reaction, not tradition; adaptation, not stability.

And what do you do when you realize there wasn’t even a pattern to begin with? Just reactions to isolated moments. No footsteps walked in the same soil. No road that anyone followed for more than a few steps before it disappeared again. So the idea of 'breaking the cycle' — what if there never really was one?

It’s disorienting. Because you want to heal. But how do you heal something you can’t trace? How do you fix a legacy written in invisible ink?

There’s a term for what I was feeling: fractured perception. The realization that you’ve been viewing the world through a cracked lens — one that distorts your sense of what’s real, what’s yours, what’s worthy. It’s not a breakdown. It’s an awakening. But awakening can look and feel a lot like collapse.

I described it once like an onion. The self, layered — some parts dirty and fibrous, others bendable but hard to digest. And in between the layers? A membrane. Filmy. Present. Hard to chew, but impossible to ignore. That membrane is grief, I think. The grief of reckoning. Of realizing that even if the layers are yours, you didn’t put them there.

This isn’t a how-to. I don’t have answers. But maybe that’s the point.

Maybe healing isn’t a clean slate — maybe it’s sitting in the murk long enough to recognize what you’ve been carrying, and then asking yourself: Do I still want this?

That’s where I found myself — though not for the first time. In my personal journey, I’ve visited this space more than once.

The practice of self-assessment with the intention of healing and growth isn’t a one-time event — especially when the rivers run deep and the layers of that onion are plentiful and thick. These moments return, often quietly, sometimes urgently, reminding us that healing is not a destination. It’s a practice.

Sometimes the first step in healing is realizing the script you were given wasn’t rooted in truth. That doesn’t make you broken. That makes you brave.

If this reflection speaks to you — if you’ve ever felt like your healing journey was more about unlearning than rebuilding — you’re not alone. Let’s name it. Let’s sit with it. Let’s rise slowly, together.

Why I Write About Mental Health, Wellness & Healing

Mental health is personal to me—because I’ve had to protect mine.

Like many of us in helping professions, I’ve spent years giving care, holding space, and staying strong. But somewhere along the way, I realized that resilience isn’t the same as rest—and surviving isn’t the same as healing. I learned how easy it is to make space for everyone else while abandoning your own need for peace, softness, or stillness.

I write about mental health and wellness because I’ve lived in the tension between wanting to help others and needing to recover myself. I know what it’s like to pour from an empty cup, to wake up tired in more ways than one, and to feel like wellness is something you encourage for others but can’t find for yourself.

This isn’t a space for toxic positivity or polished advice. It’s a space for truth—for honoring the good days, naming the hard ones, and finding language for what it means to maintain your peace when the world feels loud.

Healing is a journey. Rest is resistance. Boundaries are holy. And wellness isn’t one-size-fits-all.

This section is where we talk about that—openly, honestly, and without shame.
Because you deserve your wellness too. Not just as a reward for productivity—but as a right.

This space is offered with care.
My hope is that what you find here brings light to your questions, encouragement to your quiet moments, and validation to the emotions we’re often asked to tuck away.
Because our experiences—messy, beautiful, complex, and ever-evolving—are worthy of being seen, honored, and held.