It’s sad and mind boggling at the same time how little we know and understand about emotional pain, not just our own, but that of those we encounter, too.
As September, the month we typically try to raise awareness (or, rather, more awareness than other months) about suicide prevention, is coming up quick, I’ll be writing the next few weeks more about suicide and the grief that surrounds it when people die by suicide.
A friend posted a cartoon about emotional pain last week. One character stood over the other– who was lying down and clearly in pain- saying, “I don’t know how to help you.”
The ridiculous thing about this is how true it is. And yet how it doesn’t make sense because we all have emotional pain in our lives. Is it because we can’t see it on others so we don’t believe it it? Is it because we’ve spent our entire lives being told to suck it up, to move forward, to ignore it, too remember that the glass is full?
Is it because the people most likely to tell us that we are idiotic for having it probably most likely are stuffing their own pain so far into their bodies that its manifesting physically and they don’t want to feel themselves so they won’t let others feel either?
While I’m not one that believes in airing every feeling we have on social media, I do believe there is a balance to it. We should in our lives have ways to cope, people with whom we can share, or ways of sharing (like keeping a journal) that give us a place to let go of our emotions.
As life continues to keep us all in a bucket of uncertainty, my hope is that people are teaching others (especially youth) how to cope with emotional pain. Life is about building blocks and now is the perfect opportunity to learn what will only help us cope in the future.