The Myth of "Better"

There is a quiet pressure woven into nearly every conversation about healing: the assumption that we are moving toward something called better. Better days. Better habits. Better bodies. Better minds. Better versions of ourselves. It’s framed as encouragement, but often it feels like a demand. An expectation that survival should eventually resolve into neat progress, visible improvement, a recognizable finish line.

We are taught to believe that healing is a staircase—each step taking us further away from pain and closer to ease. That if we just do the work, follow the plan, try hard enough, we will arrive at a version of ourselves that is lighter, calmer, more productive, more palatable. “Better,” as society defines it, is clean and legible. It reassures other people that our suffering had a purpose and an end.

But what if it doesn’t work like that?

What if your body does not move in straight lines? What if your mind does not comply with timelines? What if the thing you are surviving is not something you can outgrow or outheal?

Living in a body and mind that may never be “better” by society’s standards is a constant negotiation. There is grief there—real grief—for the versions of myself I was promised if I just tried hard enough. The version who would be “back to normal,” who would function without accommodations, who would no longer need rest explained or pain justified. I was told, implicitly and explicitly, that survival was temporary and that thriving would follow.

I’ve finished treatment now. That sentence carries weight. It carries expectations—spoken and unspoken—that I am supposed to be on the other side of something. That I am supposed to feel stronger, clearer, more capable. That I should be able to translate my survival into productivity, optimism, or at least visible improvement. There is a quiet disappointment that shows up when those expectations aren’t met, when “finished” doesn’t mean fixed.

What people don’t always understand is that survival doesn’t end just because a program does. Healing doesn’t click into place because a box was checked. Some wounds don’t close cleanly. Some conditions don’t resolve. Some lives are shaped not by recovery, but by ongoing adaptation.

And yet, we rarely talk about that kind of survival. The kind that doesn’t make for a triumphant before-and-after story. The kind that isn’t inspirational in a tidy way.

Survival, for me, has been cyclical. Messy. Non-linear. It doesn’t look like a staircase—it looks like a spiral. I revisit the same fears, the same limitations, the same lessons, again and again, each time with slightly different tools, slightly different awareness. Some days feel lighter. Some days feel heavy in familiar ways. Progress is not measured by distance from pain, but by how I learn to live alongside it.

There is a cruelty in the myth of “better” that often goes unnamed. It places the burden of healing entirely on the individual, ignoring the systems that create harm in the first place. It suggests that if you are not improving, you are failing. That if you are still struggling, you must not be trying hard enough. It leaves little room for disabled bodies, chronic illness, mental health realities, or trauma that does not obey timelines.

For queer, trans, and disabled people especially, “better” is often code for “less inconvenient.” Less visible. Less disruptive. Less honest about the cost of living in a world that was not built for us. We are encouraged to smooth our edges, to translate our pain into resilience narratives that make others comfortable. The myth of better asks us to turn survival into proof that the system works, rather than evidence that it doesn’t.

But what if healing isn’t about becoming someone else?

What if it’s about staying alive in a body that changes, in a world that harms, with a nervous system that remembers?

There is a quieter kind of courage in letting go of the promise of “better.” In choosing to live without the guarantee of improvement. In allowing survival to be enough. I am learning—slowly, imperfectly—that my worth is not measured by how well I perform recovery. That my life does not need to resolve into an uplifting arc to be meaningful.

Some days, living looks like rest. Some days, it looks like creating. Some days, it looks like asking for help again, even when I wish I didn’t need to. None of those days are failures. None of them are steps backward. They are all part of the same spiral—evidence that I am still here.

The myth of “better” tells us that the goal is transformation. But I am beginning to believe that the goal is presence. Breath. Continuance. The quiet, stubborn act of staying.

Journaling Prompts

You might sit with these slowly. You don’t have to answer all of them. Let your body set the pace.

• Where did I first learn what “better” was supposed to look like? Who benefited from that definition?
• In what ways have I been pressured—by others or myself—to perform healing or improvement?
• What parts of me have survived, even when I wasn’t getting “better”?
• What does my survival look like when I stop measuring it by productivity, progress, or optimism?
• Where do I notice cycles or spirals in my healing rather than straight lines?
• What would it mean to release the promise of “better” and choose presence instead?
• If living is the point, what does living gently look like for me right now?
  

Better isn’t the point.
Living is.

With softness and solidarity,
Ezra 🖤