Pain

[qos]

I like to think of myself as someone who does a reasonably good job of balancing intellect and emotion. I strive to be rational, but I also honor my emotions. I'm not afraid to cry. I've learned to be angry and to honor my anger while not letting it injure others. I'm not afraid to laugh, to be passionate, to love. While grieving LM, I've allowed my grief to be grief. I deliberately allowed it to run its course in all its manifestations. I didn't try to fight or ignore the pain.

But I've been realizing recently that there are certain kinds of pain that I don't honor, don't allow myself to experience. One of these is relationship pain. When I'm hurt by someone who I love, especially by rejection, then my pride steps forward. I tell myself that I'm not as badly hurt as all that, that I don't give a damn what they do now, and etc. I deny my pain, bury it, because I'm ashamed to allow myself to be hurt by someone who evidently doesn't care about me. If they don't care, why should I?

Then there's the more subtle pain of my daily life. I know how fortunate I am to have the advantages I do, and I believe in being positive as much as possible. I don't have full-time employment, and the employment I've had for most of my adult life has been unsatisfying, but that's no different than millions of other people. I've always had a roof over my head, always had enough to eat, my own car, health coverage. I have no cause to be whining.

And yet. . . my daily life hurts. The temp job I'm doing hurts on a variety of levels. The schedule hurts. The fear for my economic future hurts. The shame of not having an actual career hurts. And every day I try to ignore and bury that pain because I'm doing all that I can to make things work, and I don't want to make it any harder by hurting. Of course, that doesn't actually make the pain go away, it just shoves some of it under an increasingly lumpy rug.

It's only been within the past couple of weeks that I've started to admit to the pain that I habitually deny. And when I acknowledge it and look at it, I start to learn from it. I start to see how badly it's crippling me to leave it festering. I've started to look at the other issues the pain his hidden.

I really don't want to do this work right now. I've hurt so damn much since LM's death, and I don't want to be in pain, or look at pain, or go into the pain, any more. I want to feel good. I want to be happy.

But I don't think that's going to be possible until I go look fully into the faces of my pain, embrace it without wallowing in it, and learn what I need to learn. Only then I will I be able to release these chronic pains and move on.

I don't want to learn these lessons.
I just want the hurting to stop.

But that's not the gig I signed up for when I started working with Ereshkigal.

Comments

[oakmouse]

*hugs* As some famous therapist or other said, "Either way, it hurts." The advantage to dealing with the pain is that dealing with it cleans out the festering stuff that would otherwise infect your whole life. You're right; you need to do this.

*more hugs*

[anax-anarkhos.livejournal.com]

Yes, what she said.

[lupagreenwolf.livejournal.com]

Thirded. And more *hugs*.

[sekhmetkare.livejournal.com]

Then there's the more subtle pain of my daily life. I know how fortunate I am to have the advantages I do, and I believe in being positive as much as possible... the employment I've had for most of my adult life has been unsatisfying, but that's no different than millions of other people. I've always had a roof over my head, always had enough to eat, my own car, health coverage. I have no cause to be whining.

And yet. . . my daily life hurts. The ...job I'm doing hurts on a variety of levels... The fear for my economic future hurts. The shame of not having an actual career hurts. And every day I try to ignore and bury that pain because I'm doing all that I can to make things work, and I don't want to make it any harder by hurting. Of course, that doesn't actually make the pain go away, it just shoves some of it under an increasingly lumpy rug.

{{{{{HUGE LION HUGS}}}}}

Oh, WOW. Your words, your pain... and also mine, only I feel it as anger. I'm crying with both sympathy and relief as I read this. I owe you a HUGE thank you for being brave enough to say this, because I've been trying to figure out why I feel so angry much of the time, and now I know.

That being said, your reasons for being unhappy and "whining" are as valid to you as anyone else's are to them, no matter how many advantages you may have. There's nothing wrong with not being satisfied (no matter how much our brain tells us we should just be grateful for what we have now), nothing wrong with wanting more. The question is, how do we get what we REALLY want??? I'm still working on that one.

[shadowandstar.livejournal.com]

It's always so good to hear that my words have helped someone else to a new insight. Thank you.


And yes: the challenge is to get where we really want to be. I'm still working on that one too. . .