A proverb I think is often wrong is:
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Sometimes what doesn’t kill you leaves scars.
Sometimes it leaves grief, anxiety, fear, chronic pain, or wounds that take years to heal.
Strength isn’t automatically created by suffering. In my experience, strength comes from the healing that happens afterward—the courage to keep going, to ask for help, to rebuild, and to choose hope despite what you’ve endured.
Not everything that hurts us makes us stronger. But healing can.
Survival and healing are not the same thing.
