Naming the Beast
Language, narrative identity and the path of healing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are experiences you carry with you for years without having words for them. They remain present like shadows, shaping your choices, your feelings, your reactions — yet they are diffuse and unnameable. Only when you find words does the experience gain contours and become manageable. For me, writing has been precisely that: a way to name the beast.

 

From a psychological perspective, this is not a luxury but a necessity. Trauma and destructive relationships settle into repetitions — the constant reliving of events that remain unresolved. Without language, that repetition is a circle. With language, it can shift into a line, into a narrative that creates movement and meaning. Writing became my path from ruminating to processing: not endlessly chewing over, but slowly understanding and integrating.

 

Philosophically, this touches the very core of our existence. Paul Ricoeur calls this narrative identity: we become who we are through the story we tell about ourselves. And Hannah Arendt points out that speaking — and therefore writing — is both a political and existential act: it gives truth a place in the world and makes us visible to others. In this sense, writing is not only therapy, but also a form of responsibility: a refusal to let reality disappear into silence or distortion.

 

For me, this writing was never primarily intended to persuade or move someone else, but to rediscover myself. It was not about letting go of a person, but about letting go of the version of myself that remained trapped in destructive dynamics. Through writing I found a ground in which I could grow and at the same time a path toward a new beginning: a life in which love, truth and connection once again became possible.

 

 

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The psychological layer – from repetition to meaning

Anyone who goes through a destructive relationship often discovers that the pain does not end the moment the relationship is broken off. On the contrary, that is when it truly begins: in your mind, scenes, words and silences repeat themselves. It is as if your nervous system keeps returning to the moments of confusion, abandonment or manipulation.

 

Psychologically, this is understandable. Trauma and relational abuse are not only stored as memories, but also as fragments of experience that flare up again whenever something in the present touches them.

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This repetition has a function: the brain is trying to gain a grip on what was too overwhelming, too confusing or too painful to grasp all at once. But without processing, it remains a closed circle: endless chewing without movement. We call this rumination.

 

The shift occurs the moment words appear. As soon as the experience is poured into language, something fundamental changes. Chaos takes on contours, repetition turns into a story with a beginning, middle and end. In psychological terms, this is called narrative processing: the pain is not erased or avoided, but given a place within one’s life history. The self can begin to move forward again, because it has found a foothold in meaning.

 

For me, my journals were that foothold. In them I could write down what really happened, apart from the distortions and gaslighting in my relationship. By writing daily, I regained my own perception. On paper I knew: this is the truth. It gave me an anchor, a confirmation of my own reality, while everything around me seemed to be thrown into doubt.

 

Psychological research on writing confirms this. Expressive writing has been shown to regulate emotions, organize memories and even positively influence the immune system. But more importantly: it restores the connection with the self. It’s a way to reclaim your inner voice — a voice that in destructive relationships is often systematically drowned out or undermined.

 

For me, writing did not become a way of holding on to the past, but rather a way to free myself from its repetition. It was the step from circling to moving forward, from ruminating to giving meaning.

 

 

 

The philosophical layer – language and identity

Writing is not only a psychological process, it also touches the philosophical core of our existence. The question of who we are is inseparably bound to the stories we tell about ourselves. As Paul Ricoeur argues, our narrative identity does not arise from isolated events, but from the way we weave them into language, into a story that gives our life meaning. Without words, experience remains fragmented; with words, a continuity emerges in which past, present and future become connected.

 

Hannah Arendt takes this a step further. For her, speaking — and therefore writing — is an existential act. By putting experiences into words, we step into the open, we make visible what would otherwise remain hidden and we give truth a place in the world. In an environment where distortion and manipulation dominate, finding words thus becomes a moral act: a refusal to let reality vanish into silence or lies.

 

For me personally, writing has been exactly that. It was not merely introspection, but resistance against the erasure of my inner reality. In the relationship, truth was denied or twisted. By writing I returned my perception to myself — and with it, my very existence.

 

Philosophically, this touches something I have come to see ever more deeply: that love, truth and connection cannot exist apart from one another. Language is the ground in which these three meet. Only in truthful language can love reveal itself as recognition of the other. Only in truthful language can connectedness truly endure.

 

That is why writing has become more than a tool for me; it is an existential path. A path that not only reshapes my identity, but also opens the possibility to live again in truth — and thereby, in love.

 

 

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Personal reflection – not letting go of the other, but of yourself

For a long time I believed that healing meant I had to let her go. That if I created enough distance, allowed enough time to pass, found enough understanding, the pain would eventually fade. But gradually I discovered that this was not the core. The real process was not about letting go of the other, but about letting go of the version of myself that had remained trapped in that relationship.

 

That version of me had endlessly adapted. She had been blinded by false promises and fake remorse, had made herself small out of fear of rejection and had sacrificed herself again and again in the hope of being seen. She had been willing to put her mental and physical health at risk under the guise of “love.” She had been willing to set aside her own truth in order not to lose the bond. And precisely in doing so, I lost myself.

 

Through writing, I began to see this dynamic more clearly. I saw how I had become entangled in patterns of dependency, manipulation, hope and self-forgetfulness. And how those patterns revealed not only something about her, but also about me. Writing made visible what I would rather not have seen: that I was the one who had abandoned my inner compass.

 

That realization was painful, but also liberating. Because what you can name, you can also change. Every page I filled helped me loosen a little more from that old version of myself. Not by condemning her, but by acknowledging her: this was me, this is what I did, this was my way of surviving. And through that recognition, space opened for a new path forward.

 

It was precisely there that something unexpected occurred: letting go of my ex happened almost on its own. Not because I consciously aimed for it, but because the grip she had on my old self dissolved as soon as I left that old version of me behind. It turned out to be a side effect of a deeper process. By slowly returning to my true self, my ex lost her power over my story. Where I had thought the struggle lay in letting go of the other, the liberation lay in rediscovering myself.

 

Writing helped me move beyond the question of how to let her go, toward the discovery of who I could become. It was a process of returning to my own core — a core that no longer needed to be trapped in the theatre of the other, but that could once again orient itself toward truth, love and connection.

 

 

 

Conclusion – writing as a healing act

Looking back, I see that writing was much more than a way to record memories. It was an act of restoration. A way to create a ground where none was left. Where the relationship had been marked by distortion, gaslighting and the erasure of truth, writing brought clarity and steadiness.

 

Writing gave me the ability to organize my experiences, to recognize patterns and to give a voice to what would otherwise have been lost in silence. It allowed me to meet myself anew — not as the woman trapped in destructive dynamics, but as the woman who managed to give meaning to her own pain.

 

Philosophically, writing is therefore an existential act. It is the reclaiming of interiority in a world that often threatens it. It is the refusal to let your reality vanish into the void of manipulation and denial.

 

Psychologically, writing is a way out of the circle of repetition — a transformation of trauma into narrative, of chaos into meaning.

 

And personally, it has been nothing less than a form of healing. It gave me not only the strength to release the old version of myself, but also the experience that letting go of the other happened naturally because of it. In words, I found a new ground: a space in which truth, love and connectedness became possible again.

 

And yet I do not write only to rediscover myself. I also write in the hope that my words may mean something to others who have become entangled in similar dynamics. Dynamics like triangulation, blame-shifting and gaslighting are already underexposed, but this is especially true for relationships between women. Woman-to-woman relationships are often romanticized or idealized, yet the reality can be just as complex, destructive and confusing as in any other relationship.

 

Precisely about this, too little language exists. By writing down my experiences, I hope to contribute to those missing words. Because recognition is the first form of liberation: the realization that you are not alone, that what you are experiencing is real and above all: that there is a way out.

 

Perhaps this is the deepest meaning of writing: it's not an escape from reality, but a return to what is real. It makes visible what would otherwise remain hidden and gives the soul the courage to once again attach itself to truth. In this sense, writing is a healing act — an act that not only transforms the past into meaning, but also opens the way toward a freer future.