Steve’s greatest fear is that one day the love of his life will leave him and choose someone better. He lives with a constant sense of inadequacy and thinks he is “less than” others. His partner has been struggling to get past the walls he built up.
Anushka is haunted by her ugly past. Every night she dreams about the time she caused her parents stress during her rebellious teen years. The regret and guilt follow her like a shadow.
Harry has just been suspended from university due to his raising voice against a professor. Harry had a reputation in school of intimidating his classmates and was kicked out of his basketball team for fighting with his teammate.
Catherine had grown up without a dad, all her life she believed it was her fault that her dad left home. She drowns her sorrow in alcohol every day, it feels as though she had been grieving his loss her whole life.
Davis is embarrassed about how he looks. He’s never been noticed by any girl because he doesn’t possess the charm and confidence that other guys have. He wonders if he will be lonely forever.
Emotional pain comes in all shapes, forms and sizes, yet it spares no man. Everyone at some point faces a loss or a hurt that stings. Some of us cry, some of us yell. However the common denominator is the fact that everyone feels emotional pain which is a natural part of the human experience. The challenge here although is the task of acknowledging emotional wounds as real wounds. Many heartbreaks go unnoticed and overseen as “no big deal” because one cannot see the heart bleeding, so we end up dismissing our pain or loss. The second reason why it is hard to spot emotional pain is because each person experiences pain differently and hence interprets the degree of pain based on their own life experiences.
In Catherine’s case, when her favorite male teacher in school decided to change schools she felt like she was reliving the experience of her dad leaving, and feel worse about his departure than the other students. Catherine often longed for a father figure who would never leave, this incident caused Catherine to miss school for a week. Hence pain is experienced uniquely despite it being a common link in humanity.
The third reason why emotional pain is not properly acknowledged as real is because of how we learnt to respond to emotional pain as children. Growing up we would look to our parents as a point of reference on how to respond in the face of problems. Some of us follow in the footsteps of our parents while others take the opposite route.
If we look at Harry’s story. We will see that his mother was survivor of communal violence, she had escaped and vowed to never talk of her past again. However she had a strong temper which set off at the slightest provocation, Harry learnt from his mother’s over the years that anger is the only way to respond in the face of tension, although that is not what his mother intended for him to learn, she unknowingly passed down her poor coping habits to her son.
There are many unhelpful ways we can respond and cope in the face of emotional pain.
Often times we respond in those manners because of the wrong beliefs we hold which are “thinking errors” that go unidentified. Few of the thinking errors related to emotional pain includes the belief that we are “weak or powerfulness when we become vulnerable”. We assume that people will automatically take advantage of our vulnerability. We often attribute others hurtful response to our vulnerability as our responsibility when in reality it was their choice to dishonor and disrespect our honesty. So we disguise, hide and conceal our true feelings. It reflects more on them than on us, yet we quickly use isolated incidents of betrayal as the general rule of thumb to avoid trusting anyone; this prevents us from having meaningful experiences in life.
In Steve’s circumstance, his fear of his partner leaving him is caused by the time his girlfriend in college dumped him to be with her ex-boyfriend. One single incident of trusting someone only to be betrayed had crippled his entire confidence in romantic relationships, making him anxious and fearful. His emotional wounds are caused by a thinking error that he is to blame for his girlfriend’s choice. His believes it was because he was inadequate, so with his “rejection mindset” he unknowingly sabotages his current relationship as well.
Another wrong belief associated with dismissing and denying emotional pain is due to the gender bias for emotional expression. Women are often considered too sensitive and men are considered too “pansy” when they are vulnerable with emotions. Many suppress their emotions in fear of being ridiculed, not taken seriously, being awkward or over-reactive. Especially in Asian countries where being vulnerable is associated with shame. Hence it’s more appropriate to mask hurt and sadness with anger or sarcasm.
In Davis’ case, we see that his insecurity about his personality and looks, along with his fear of being unwanted was his emotional piece to process. However, Davis would not be able to express his struggles freely with anyone since it is considered abnormal for a man to talk about his feelings. It would further worsen his insecurities about being different. When in reality, these ideas are simply socially constructed beliefs that prevent us from healthy expression of emotions.
Another false belief that cause us to suffer alone is the idea that others will be burdened by our emotional expression of pain. We don’t want to cause trouble or our people pleasing mentalities prevent us from expressing our emotional needs transparently.
Take a look at Anushka’s story, we see that her regrets of her past life, prevent her from approaching her parents when she is in need or even sharing her challenges with them. She doesn’t want to cause any emotional burden on them as she felt she had already done enough damage. Her thinking error causes distance and prevents her from developing a real connection with them, causes her emotional hurt to worsen as she dismisses its seriousness.
The various stories and examples, convey the impact our thinking patterns have on our emotional health. We can ask ourselves, “What are the thinking patterns that block me from recognizing and honoring my emotional pain?” We continue to discuss more about recognizing emotional wounds in our next article, “Hurting Well Matters”
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