When Time Won't Heal

It's supposed to be a comforting balm, "Time heals all wounds." My parents would murmer it, softly, as they held me, when I was a child. At the time, I had thought myself an adult, so evolved... and my problems so insurmountable. I had thought I knew real pain, what heartbreak was. Of course they were right. Things always got better... there were always new boys that came along, wiping away any memory of the old ones who hurt me. It just took a little time... but my always wounds healed. I'm an obsessor, by nature. I've always been like this, looking back, but I suppose I've just recently been able to clearly name it, to identify it within myself and my behaviors. And I've only recently seen how these obsessive, overly-analytical thoughts have been interwover with my healing process throughout the darker days of my life. But I have never known darkness like this. I have never known anything like this... I didn't think it could exist. Thoughts so sickeningly painful, I can't bring myself to think of them, let alone mull them over. It's paralyzing, and I can only keep it out of my head for so long. With all the strength I can muster, I try throwing myself into activities, or forcing myself to sleep, but it comes back quickly, when I least expect it, crashing into my thoughts... leaving me twisting inside, shaking outside. I never meant to write about myself on here. I wanted to start a SPECIFIC blog about Christian feminism, tempered with my ever-so-slight southern accent. And here I am, airing all my dirty laundry, giving away all but their names. It's VERY embarrassing. Weak. But here is my question, and I hope to God at least one of you sweet, thoughtful women I've never met has an answer for me... What is it exactly that makes time work? Surely, it's not time itself... time spent? Being vapid, avoidant... how does that make a person recover? You can never really run from your problems, or escape pain. They exist, even when you ignore them. Does time "heal all wounds" because it takes time to explore every dark corner of the pain, each angle of the situation that caused it? Or is it really, on the most honest, base level, that when you put the span of time between yourself and what hurt you, you stop caring so much? That other things come and flood the spaces where the pain was? I hope that's not the case, but I'm not sure I can endure the alternative. Maybe there are some wounds that never heal, that you learn to live with and carry with you. I have a gnawing fear that this will be the truth for me. Time heals MOST wounds. Some never get better, but you get used to the hurt and learn to live with it. I hate the unknown... more than anything, I wish I knew.