Almost two months have passed since the breakup.
I experienced lots of
different emotions and mental states. First it was a complete sense of self
dissociation, followed by fear, deep sadness and regret. After that I could
only feel hatred and rage against my ex.
I
was then away for a couple of days visiting old friends abroad. That trip was
an excellent moment to experience and embrace different emotions, like joy,
love, freedom, and happiness. Now that I am back home and restarted to work,
sadness came back.
My
first impulse was to deny it. Pretend it wasn’t there. And then I could only
feel apathy. So yesterday I had this epiphany while talking to a friend. That
to be alive is to experience all this palette of emotions. And when we deny ourselves
the right of feeling the so called “negative emotions” we are also abdicating
of feeling the ones that make us feel good. That’s when we start feeling
depressed.
Suppressing
our sadness, denying us the right to feel the melancholy caused by the
separation and mourning, will keep us in a limbo where no feelings can be experienced.
I
tend to associate sadness and its consequent isolation with suspending life,
and probably I am not the only one thinking this way. Our society, based in
action and pleasure, tells us that being alone, feeling sad, and being less productive
is similar to be dead.
This
is of course a false idea. We need to accept the emotions we are feeling, and
allow ourselves to fully acknowledge and experience them. To feel what is
happening in our bodies, giving free expression to the thoughts and images that
come with this emotions, and accept that this is the way we feel now.
Also
is important to note that emotion states are transient. So these feelings of deep
sadness caused by loss will not be here forever. This only happens when we deny
them, trapping them in our minds and body. In this way they will grow, drying
our capacities to experience other kinds of emotions, and eventually in the
future they will manifest in unrecognizable ways.
You
are not the same as your feelings. You don’t become a less valuable person
because you are feeling low and want to spend more time on your own. You are
exactly the same human being, but for now, as a consequence of a sad event that
happened in your life you don’t feel so good and active as you used to. You
need time in order to heal the wound.
So
there are important things to be aware of while sharing our feelings with
friends:
1. You don’t need to be ashamed of your
sadness and inactivity.
2. Your friends will try to cheer you
up and say for you to let go, because that is what is supposed and it’s also
what our culture values. If you don’t need to be cheered up you must tell them
you just need to express your sadness and be hear and understood.
3. If
you feel like having a hug, just ask for it.
4. Don’t
force yourself to be happy just for the sake of the people around you. I am not
saying that you should always be complaining about what happened to you, or
making other feel guilty for your misery, but if you are feeling low you need to share
it. If your friends keep wanting to deny your feelings maybe they are not
really your friends, and are only people to be around when you are happy.
Image of girl crying was taken from
here
