Today I feel broken. Sad and broken. For a variety of reasons with one of them being to do with a friend who's not coping too well at the moment.
A friend of mine is seriously considering killing himself and all the signs are there that he might do it too. I feel so helpless as it's like watching a horror-scene from real life and not being able to make a difference. I'm trying, I've been trying for a long time to reach out to him, but nothing I say or do seems to help. He's fed up with everything and although he's able to tell me how he's feeling, he refuses to see someone professionally as he's been there & done that and is convinced they can't help him. I don't judge people who do it or try to do it as have been there myself, I just wish I could take his pain away and help him see that there is light at the end of this tunnel, I know how tiring it gets, I really do, but there is hope, always hope.
This is for you J and for anyone else struggling at the moment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pudOFG5X6uA I'm sorry to hear that about your friend, especially considering you have been there meaning I guess it's potentially quite triggering for you and your own fight to stay strong.
I don't think we ever have the oratory skills to make someone suddenly able to see the world in a different way than they did up to that point. I think Os always says it best, you can't rationalise someone out of a position they never rationalised themselves into in the first place. Doesn't mean we don't try so I hope for your sake and his that the small ways you have tried to help so far, bear some fruit so that he can keep going and so can you.
Other reasons I'm feeling sad and broken, are to do with me having an appointment with my psychologist tomorrow and dreading it. I know what she wants me to deal with in our session tomorrow, but I don't want to deal with it, I'm scared, terrified, sad, angry, confused. I don't feel ready yet.
Therapy is hard, for sure. Having to dredge up old wounds, especially in light of the stuff you then go on to say, about being conditioned to keep shtum about your darker feelings.
I think the world and society at large disapprove of sadness, of grief, of those who express their pain. Are we meant to just suck it all up and pretend to be jolly? I've spent my whole life slapping on the happy face, laughing when extremely angry or sad, smiling at all times. People seem to like that. Happy-people is who we're meant to be. Never angry, never sad, never upset, never talking about pain or sorrow or those things that hurt so deep that one becomes scarred for life. A child cries and people tell the child to suck it up, to stop being a "baby", to shut the fuck up, to stop being a girl or that they are gay for it. A teenager cries and people say it's just a phase, their pain isn't real, they just don't appreciate their parents enough, hey, it's just another sign of the selfish generation. An adult cries and everyone turns away, it's embarrassing, get a hold of yourself, you're supposed to be strong, you're not allowed to feel you're a mother, you're not allowed to cry, think of those worse off. An elderly person cries and everyone sighs, dementia, dramatic, eccentric, oh good they'll be gone soon.
For those of us from strict religious back-grounds like I was, you may have been told to pray, to forgive (in other words gloss over & accept the other persons bad-behavior), to suck up all "negative" feelings such as anger, or sadness, or fear etc... You may have been told like I was, to do nothing to change the situation but rather to submit and obey those who hurt you, like I was with my father and ex-husband, that to do otherwise would put your chance to enter into heaven at jeopardy. Told that your feelings are invalid and wrong and don't exist and are all evidence of doubt and lack of complete obedience to Allah or God or whatever you may refer to as. To think of those worse off than you (and hence ignoring your pain because it's a whole thing of well my pain/sadness/situation isn't bad enough to seek help or to feel or to cry or to be protected). To have sabr (patience) no matter how close you are to the breaking point.
Depressed people are told "just snap out of it", people who struggle with nightmares of past traumatic events are told that it must be something they're eating or that they must be doing something wrong. People are criticized and given a societal slap for expressing how they really feel. If it was a broken leg, most normal people would understand the pain, but because it's emotional it's "invisible", it's "negligible", it's "insignificant".
I grew up being taught that pain was something to be ignored. If you wanted to cry you better wipe it off your face, 'cause otherwise you're going to be backhanded or ridiculed. If you break a bone, don't you dare complain, 'cause you're making a big deal out of nothing. If you face trauma that hurts you in so many ways that you can't count or even begin to understand, there is no one you can talk to, you gotta pretend you're fine, that it doesn't hurt, pretend that it doesn't even exist, pretend happy-family.
So you hold the pain in and hold it in, hold in all the emotions associated with it and it turns into self-hatred.
Grief was something I wasn't able to do. Suck it up loser, I'd say, until my insides were screaming with trauma upon trauma, boiling and eating away, the secrets all messed up and tangled inside with no outlet except to turn it inwards, on oneself, an angry boiling mess of pain with the message, "I hate myself". Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.
And here I am grieving. It's a relief to finally grieve.
I still don't know how I got to be here today, how I survived and crawled and struggled each step to safety. It feels good to finally have a chance to grieve. Those days are gone, yet the wounds are still there, that child is still there, as is that teenager and adult, and for what they lost, I will cry, for if I don't cry no one will. I'm angry and I'm sad, but I don't feel bad for it any more, well maybe a little bit, but it's part of the process, this is my journey. I don't have to suck it up any more, and I won't, I spent too many years sucking it all up and pretending I was fine when I wasn't. Today is the day to grieve, and let go, pain by pain and trauma by trauma, and I will do it in my own time, when I'm ready, not when the world demands it so, my pain is valid, just as much as anyone elses, and if it hurts, don't expect me to no longer feel, 'cause it fucking hurts and the world can go get fucked if it expects me to suck it all up again.
Hell no!
Couldn't agree more. In islam you are not even allowed to talk about a bad dream, even though a bad dream can be quite mentally damaging, especially if the dreams and repetitive. This always frustrated me about Islam. The fact that not only could I not bring up a bad dream, but neither could I talk about my past. I had to keep it in, keep it buried where it wasn't bad to examine it sometimes, when I was alone.
I always thought that whole catholic thing about confession being good for the soul was far better. I used to even find myself feeling an urge to just go into a church for confession. To believe I have been forgiven. For what I am not sure, but to know, to offload. Or in the modern day, the secular world, we have talking therapy. Humanistic psychology that focuses on total acceptance and non judgement from your therapist........no doubt its good for the 'soul'. Islam gets it wrong, talking is known to help.
A problem aired is a problem shared, and when it's shared its not so bad.
And yes, unhappiness is frowned upon. To be sucessful you can not wallow, you can not express how you feel. Introverted emo loners are judged harshly.
If you know anything about MBTI, I love how it has helped me to understand this ^^ phenomena. Most of the world is made up of the 2pull your socks up types", and in the SJ's of the world. The ones most likely to expect you to snap the fuck out of it. On the other hand my personality type, the writer of depressing poetry and fantasy books, the loner artists who generally feel sadness anyway and experience it in ways other don't, well my type makes up the rarer types in the world.
No wonder I sit back sometimes totally annoyed and baffled by the pull your socks up types. If only things could be so simple and tough love worked on everyone hey. But it doesn't.
So no, not all of us can bounce and dance through life without being affected by the things that we see and experience.
Hello no.
Topic: Broken Birdie Flying - Blog of this Ex-Muslim