Letters From a Therapist - Reflection Six: The Exit Wound

There’s a silence that follows an exit.

Not just the absence of a person, a place, or a role, but the raw ache of what it cost you to walk away.

We talk about leaving as if it’s always strength, always freedom and sometimes it is but what we rarely name is the grief that comes with it. The hollow space where something that once felt like home used to live.

Leaving a relationship, a job, a friendship, or even an old version of self is not clean. It feels like tearing out roots you thought would hold forever. Roots that, over time, began to tighten around your throat.

As a therapist, I see how often we romanticise the exit, as if it’s just a door swinging open, but most endings carry shadows: guilt, what-ifs, the quiet torment of wondering if you could have stayed just a little longer.

Here’s the truth: staying in places that diminish you will always cost more than leaving them.

The wound isn’t the exit. The wound is the years spent convincing yourself to stay.

If you’re standing at the threshold of an ending, know this: hesitation doesn’t mean weakness. It means you understand the weight of love, loyalty, and memory. It means you know what it costs to carry them in your bones, but sometimes, the bravest act is laying them down.

Not because they weren’t real, but because you are. Exiting is not betrayal. Exiting is reclamation.

It is choosing to stop bleeding quietly for something that no longer sustains you and while the silence after an exit may feel unbearable, it is also the soil of your becoming.

You don’t leave to be empty.

You leave to breathe again.

With clarity and heart,

Paula, your Heart Therapist