The Gratitude Trap

After my lung cancer surgery, people kept telling me how lucky I was.

And they were right. The doctors caught it early. Stage 1A. They removed the upper right lobe of my lung, and I didn't need chemo or radiation. I was going to be fine.

So I should be grateful.

I should be happy.

I should feel like I'd been given a second chance.

And I did feel those things, sometimes. But mostly, I felt exhausted. And guilty. Guilty that I wasn't as happy and grateful as everyone around me thought I should be.

What no one tells you about surviving

When you come through something hard, the world expects you to celebrate. You're supposed to bounce back, get back to normal, and radiate gratitude for being alive.

And when you don't? When you're still tired, still hurting, still figuring out who you are on the other side of it? You start to feel like you're doing it wrong. Like there's a right way to survive, and you're failing at it.

That's the gratitude trap. Gratitude stops being something you feel and turns into a test you keep failing. And every time someone says "you're so lucky," the guilt gets a little heavier.

If you've been there, after an illness, a loss, a divorce, or a season that rearranged everything, I want you to know you're not the only one. Not even close.

Gratitude isn't something you owe anyone

It took me a long time to see it, but here's what I eventually learned: gratitude isn't a requirement for surviving. It's a choice. And forced gratitude isn't really gratitude at all. It's performance.

The real thing showed up for me when I stopped trying to force it. When I finally gave myself permission to feel what I actually felt: scared, exhausted, angry, lost.

And eventually, yes, grateful. But in my own time.

Here's the other thing I had to learn. "Shoulds" are almost always about someone else's comfort, not your healing. When people tell you that you should be grateful, should move on, should be fine by now, they usually mean well. But often what they're really saying is: your struggle makes me uncomfortable, and I need you to be okay so I can feel better.

You can love those people and still heal on your own timeline. Your healing isn't about making anyone else comfortable.

If you're in the trap right now

You don't have to fix everything today. Start with one small thing.

Notice the word "should." "I should be doing better." "I should be over this by now." Every time you catch it, pause. You've just found an expectation that might not be yours.

Ask: says who? Where did that should come from? Your doctor? Your family? Society? Or you? Just asking the question puts a little space between you and the weight of it.

Ask: what do I actually need? Maybe it's rest. Maybe it's help. Maybe it's permission to not be okay yet. Your needs are valid, even when they don't match what you "should" need.

You're not broken

If you take one thing from this, let it be this:

You're not broken. The shoulds are.

You get to decide what your healing looks like. You get to set the pace. And you get to feel grateful when it's real, not because someone told you to.

Try this tonight. Write down one should you're ready to put down. That's the first entry in your Victory Log, my free 30-day journal. One question, once a night: what's one thing I did today that moved me forward? Get the Victory Log at www.trishdonovan.com/victory

The full story of how I found my way out of the gratitude trap is in Chapter 1 of The Courage to Start Again, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

If you're in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, US). Outside the US, visit findahelpline.com.