Holding in pain makes it worse
Q: What can I do about a friend who is withdrawing from our circle? This friend has had several stresses the past year including buying a house, having a car totalled in an accident, losing a job and having a child move to another province.
A:Life often has almost as much pain as joy. It is easy to talk about the joyful things in life. We feel good about them and others feel good about them as well. As a result, we often look forward to sharing such experiences with others. And in doing so, we often re-experience some of that earlier joy.
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It is much harder to talk about the pain in our life. We may feel self-conscious or embarrassed about it. We may have been overwhelmed by the painful experience and don’t want to even think about it since that only brings back the pain.
There are many kinds of pain. The pain from illness may not be obvious to others, but excruciatingly real to the person suffering from it.
Understanding ear
If our pain is emotional, and related to the loss of a career or the death of a good friend or family member, we will get the greatest support and understanding from someone who has been through the same thing.
Talking is the best therapy when we are experiencing pain but it can be difficult for us when we are going through personal problems. We often feel we have to bear our pain privately. It’s as if we have to keep up a front that everything is OK. We may feel embarrassed to let others see us other than at our best.
If we are having financial difficulties, we may not want others to know. We may falsely assume that our friends value us by our money, not for ourselves.
We may need to share different problems with different people. The more personal our problem, the more particular we may need to be about whom we share it with. We may decide to share our very personal problems only with a closest friend, a counsellor or a clergy.
Let pain out
The more you hold in your pain, however, the more it hurts you. Pain is like a boil. It needs to be lanced in order to let the pus escape and for healing to begin. But we must let go of emotional pain many times. When we have been hurt, or experienced loss or tragedy, we have to talk about it again and again and again.
The more we hold in our pain, the more our friends feel powerless at helping us. They can see we are hurting, but because we deny the hurt, or refuse to talk about it, they can’t do a thing. They feel helpless, frustrated or angry with us. We equally feel helpless, and even though we won’t let our friends into our personal pain, we end up resenting that they aren’t listening to us. But they can’t listen if we don’t share.
It’s hard to reach out and share when we hurt. It’s risky and takes a lot of energy. But in the long run it’s harder if we don’t take that risk. Most of us have friends who are willing to support us and show how much they care. But if we keep them locked out of our lives by refusing to share our feelings, we hurt ourselves as well as them.
Friends are helpless. The more they try to reach us, the more we push them away. Only we can do something about the situation, and that involves opening up and being honest with friends or family about what we are going through.
If you are having trouble with some aspect of your life write to Peter Griffiths in care of this newspaper. Griffiths is a mental health counsellor and member of the Canadian Mental Health Association. Letters appearing in this paper may be edited to protect the writer’s identity, however all are based on authentic letters.
