Why You Don’t Have to Be “Healed” Before You Start Dating
- Odile McKenzie, LCSW
- Jan 20
- 4 min read
If you’ve spent time on social media, in therapy spaces, or in self-help conversations, you
may have heard this message:
“You need to be healed before you start dating.”
For many people, especially Gen Z and Millennials, navigating dating in NYC, this idea can quietly turn into pressure, shame, and avoidance. It suggests that love is something you earn after you fix yourself.
But as a NYC-based therapist, I want to offer a different and more compassionate truth:
There is no finish line called “fully healed.”
And waiting to arrive there before allowing yourself connection may actually keep you stuck.
The Problem With the Idea of Being “Fully Healed”
The word healed often implies something final.
As if one day, your anxiety disappears.
Your attachment wounds resolve.
Your self-doubt never resurfaces.
But how realistic is that in a world that continues to shape us?
We are constantly influenced by:
Family systems
Cultural expectations
Racialized and gendered messaging
Capitalism and productivity culture
Every day, we’re told, directly or subtly, that we should look a certain way, reach a certain level of success, partner by a certain age, and never want “too much.”
Add the brain’s negativity bias, its natural tendency to scan for rejection, danger, and threat, and it becomes clear:
Healing is not a destination.
It’s an ongoing relationship with yourself.
Healing Is Not Linear — Especially in Relationships
One of the most misunderstood aspects of mental health is the belief that healing moves in a straight line.
It doesn’t.
There are seasons of stability and clarity.
And there are moments, after breakups, losses, or rejection, when old wounds reappear.
That doesn’t mean you’re back at square one.
It means you’re alive and responding to your environment.
Just like physical health, emotional well-being requires maintenance. You don’t get in shape once and stop moving your body forever. You adjust, rest, return, and recommit.
Mental health works the same way. You may not need therapy continuously, but many people benefit from going in and out of therapy as life brings new challenges.
We Get Hurt in Relationships — So We Heal in Relationships
This is something I often say in my therapy practice:
We get hurt in relationships, so we need relationships to heal.
Isolation can feel protective, especially if you’ve experienced relational trauma. But isolation is not the same as healing.
When you stay disconnected, you don’t get triggered, but you also don’t get to:
Practice communication and boundaries
Experience rupture and repair
Learn that conflict doesn’t always lead to abandonment
Relational healing requires relational experiences.
Dating, friendships, and community allow you to build the emotional “muscle” needed for intimacy, something that can’t be developed alone.
Love Is Not Something You Earn Through Perfection
One of the most powerful aspects of healthy relationships, romantic or platonic, is discovering that you don’t have to perform to be loved.
You don’t have to:
Be perfect
Have everything figured out
Eliminate every trigger
When someone accepts you as you are, it gently challenges the belief that love must be earned through self-sacrifice or self-erasure.
For many Black women and people of color, this belief didn’t come from nowhere; it often comes from survival.
Healing invites you to experience something different.
Loneliness Is Not a Failure — It’s Human
We are wired for connection.
Our ancestors survived through community, kinship, and collective care. As infants, we needed another human to survive, and our nervous systems still remember that truth.
So when loneliness shows up, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.
It means you’re human.
Instead of suppressing loneliness or rushing into unfulfilling connections to avoid it, healing asks us to honor our longing without compromising our needs.
Dating Is a Place to Learn — Not to Prove You’re Healed
Dating isn’t a test you need to pass.
It’s a space where awareness deepens.
Through connection, you learn:
What you need and desire
How you respond to closeness and distance
A person who claims to be “fully healed” often hasn’t had their edges touched.
Healing isn’t the absence of wounds.
It’s the ability to meet them with curiosity, accountability, and care.
You’re Allowed to Want Love and Still Be Growing
You don’t need to complete yourself before entering a relationship.
You are already whole, and still becoming.
Research consistently shows that quality relationships support emotional well-being, resilience, and happiness. Not because relationships fix us, but because we are meant to grow with others.
If you’ve been waiting to date until you’re flawless or fearless, consider this a gentle invitation to pause.
You don’t need to be healed to be worthy of love.
You need to be present, self-aware, and open to growth.
If dating, relationships, or loneliness are bringing up old patterns or new questions, you don’t have to navigate that alone.
At Odile Psychotherapy Service, we offer trauma-informed therapy in NY and NYC, with a focus on relationships, attachment, boundaries, and self-worth. We also offer support groups for those seeking connection and shared healing in community.
Whether you’re dating, partnered, or taking a pause, therapy can be a space to explore, not to fix yourself, but to understand yourself more deeply.
👉 Learn more about individual therapy or upcoming support groups here.
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