Jane* recently wrote a blog for my page. She is a woman who has been through deep, long-standing emotional trauma. She has been keeping me up to date about her recovery from depression and psychosis. It is a privilege to be able to share her blog with you. *Her name has been changed to protect her privacy.
So, here I am again, an emotional mess. Therapy session after therapy session and feeling like I’m getting worse…not better! Why did this happen to me? Why am I so ‘sick’? What is it about me that makes no one able to help? The answer to this is… wait for it…MYSELF!
You may be thinking, ‘Why on earth is she saying this is ‘her’ fault?’. For me, the answer is simple…because it is. For so long I’ve been attending therapy, talking about my emotions, my pain, guilt, shame, trauma etc and how it’s been making me feel. But one thing was a stand out…my coping mechanisms. I would run away from my emotions because of fear. Fear that sitting with them and allowing them run their course would somehow take me back to stressful times or cause me pain. I would resort to destructive behaviours like alcohol, medications and self harm. I was always quite passive aggressive towards others. It was horrible.
I had doctors telling me to sit with my emotions, ride the wave with them. Are you kidding me? Who the hell wants to sit there and feel painful, hurtful memories? Not me! I had them telling me to use more positive coping strategies, like breathing, distraction, journaling, going for a walk, challenging or changing my thoughts…again, who the hell wants to do that?
In fact, I pose this as the real response:
When we are in that moment of distress and feeling the overwhelming sense of pain or hurt, we can’t just ‘stop’ and think about what we can change our thoughts to. We don’t have the ability to say to ourselves, I won’t hurt myself because I need to sit with this. It isn’t that simple.
But you know what? There is hope that this may work. We are encouraged to write our feelings, talk about them, sit with them. Sitting with them, I have learned doesn’t mean that they need to lead to something painful or destructive. What I have learned is that I have been holding myself back in recovery due to not understanding what it means to ‘sit with our emotions’. Running from emotions out of fear will get us nowhere. It got me nowhere. And finally I have been faced with a reality check – that emotions don’t hurt us, it is our reaction to them that hurts.
As Dr. Pat Love says, “Our emotions are part of our history. They are ground into us from birth. They are meant to be there”. So, what did this mean to me? Well, a few things. I can see that yes, I have emotions. Emotions that are both good and bad, but they are all worth feeling and all have a purpose. That purpose is to guide us through life, to heal, to feel… not to be hurt. It is ok to feel emotions, it is ok to run from them, but to be fearful will allow our reactions to become destructive.
I think a common thought for so many going through depression of any type is that emotions are scary, we don’t want to ‘sit’ with them as we are afraid of where they will take us. I respect that. I was there. But things have turned around. For the first time in my 30 years of life, I allowed myself to sit with my emotions. One word that would describe my experience is…WOW! It was full on. I was sitting in my bedroom and all I could see were the words of all types of emotions bouncing off me and the walls, I felt like I was suffocating in the moment. I was crying…tears just streaming down my cheeks, I was frozen.
I began to fear where my mind was taking me and I reminded myself of these things:
I am safe here
My emotions are mine, they are real
My emotions cannot hurt me, they are only thoughts and feelings
Sitting with them will allow me to move on
Giving myself permission to ‘feel’ these emotions will help me cope
These things may sound ‘silly’ or ‘trivial, but it honestly helped they way I saw myself coping. For the first time in years I had given myself ‘permission’ to feel and it made me cry, shake, I felt sick, angry, hurt, but you know what was different? The fact I had given myself permission to feel these and allow them run their course was a new chapter of healing for me. I was no longer running away, I no longer feel the need to have my thoughts and feelings (all types of strong emotions) become evident in my destructive behaviours. I was safe. I was feeling what I needed to feel in that moment.
I know this is nothing like other posts I’ve written before, but I feel it important to share that sitting with emotions and riding that wave is something many therapists will tell us to do. It is scary, and sounds like the most ridiculous idea…we are there for lack of emotional regulation to begin with, but please, stick to it. Don’t fear your emotions, don’t run and hide from them. If you feel you need to be angry, sad, feel hurt, shame or whatever it is you feel you need to at the time, take a few minutes to sit with them. Think about it, talk about it even if it’s to yourself. But do not think that this will be a bad thing. It’s a tool that you will become better at using. Each time you face an emotion, you will better learn how to handle it.
You can take control of your feelings. Your thoughts. Your actions. No one else can do this for you. You’re the only one that holds this key to being able to allow your emotions to be exactly that…..YOUR EMOTIONS! I’ve claimed my emotions as mine, not allowing others to dictate to me how to feel and when to feel it. Learning to love yourself for who you are is a pleasurable experience. And it is important to nourish your own self, be kind, be gentle, be real!
Jane xx
May 28, 2015