This is a picture of me. It is not my favorite picture but it is a picture of real life. I sent this picture to my friend Cathy last January asking if it was normal to be crying while waiting for your take out order at Noodles and Co. She of course told me that it was not normal but that she was sorry I was sad. She is a good friend. She lets me be sad. This sadness however. had gone on for far too long and I was crying at the most inappropriate times. I had been talking to my friends and family a lot about my symptoms and I decided to see a doctor for depression. The truth was that I couldn't stop crying.
I was diagnosed with depression and put on a mood stabilizer. Whoo hoo no more sadness and inappropriate crying right? Well, sort of. I believe that unexpressed emotions can lead to a depression. The feelings don't go away, they just fester and build. In my case resulting in a lack of wanting to get out of pajamas, do anything I used to like doing, and crying all the time. Taking a pill to stabilize my mood is good for helping me to be able to get up and function daily, but it in no way takes away my feelings.
My challenge this year was to learn to let feelings flow through me and to feel them without getting trapped in them. Seriously SO HARD! I was used to shutting down the feelings when they got intense because I was afraid that I wouldn't survive the pain. So short term gain, long term loss. I was building a 40 year volcano of sadness, upset, fear, loss that erupted without me being able to stop it or control it or handle it.
With some help and guidance I am learning to let what I feel in the moment be. I am learning to make space for my feelings. Today it was sadness. Today it enveloped me like a cloud. Why? Many reasons but it doesn't matter. I don't have to know why for it to show up. It was here whether or not I could figure out why. So first I wanted to run and deny it. I thought about taking the kids somewhere fun for the day, but when I went to go offer it, I saw how content they all were just playing around the house and I let that idea go. It is not fair for me to force my family to outrun my emotions with me.
So then I decided that I could get busy with some sort of work. I have been putting off sanding and painting my kitchen cabinets, perfect. I got out my sandpaper and started in to work. I actually did feel good about this work I got done today but it did not take the sadness away. I decided that I had to accept that the sadness was here to stay for today. I had to face it, accept it, make space to feel it, to be with it. This is not an easy thing to do when you are a mom. It is hard to get the space to cry without having your children worry about you. So I let myself be sad around my kids without crying. This just looked like me being quiet. Telling them I wasn't in the mood to do certain things or just saying I was feeling kind of down or sad but not sure why.
I met up with some friends tonight and one of them shared about the sadness they were feeling around the holidays, missing a loved one who was no longer with them. That was all it took for my sadness flood gates to open. I cried for about an hour and a half. In the safety of trusted, loving friends. No one needed to know why I was feeling so sad and could not stop crying, for they were feeling the sadness too. There was no need to explain. Sometimes you just need to know you are not alone. So we all held space for our collective sadness. Each of us having different sources of sadness, but still accepting it all without judgement or competition.
On my way home, I cried more and more. I could not stop. I'm crying as I write this now. Is there something wrong with me? I'll admit sometimes I wonder. Is this normal? I don't know. Do I enjoy sitting in sadness and crying, not even sure of the reasons for it? No. Nor do I like stuffing, pretending, and putting off the inevitable explosion of emotion that will come if I do. I used to think self-care was finding a quick way to cheer myself up. I no longer think that at all. Now I think that good self care is to love myself through the sadness. To not force myself to know all the reasons why. To be okay just letting it flow out of me, knowing that I am accepting reality, dealing with and feeling my feelings.
Other people who do not practice the feeling of feelings, will not like this. You will make them uncomfortable. They will say things like "smile, things can't be that bad" , "hey let's go get a drink and cheer you up, let loose" or "look at all you have to be happy about, how can you be sad when you have all of this". Ignore that crap. It is just a way of getting you to stop a behavior that makes them uncomfortable. They are not your concern, you are. Feel whatever you need to feel and maybe wait until you are in the company of safe people, who can handle your emotions, do you let loose completely. Or in the company of yourself, who can let you cry or feel without being critical and making you think things like you are wrong or selfish or dramatic.
This won't last forever. I won't die in my feelings. I just need to be sad today. I might need to be sad tomorrow. I don't know. I just know that denying it will just postpone and intensify it. It might turn into anger toward someone or something if I try to stuff it down, and I don't want that. So tonight, I'm letting it out here on the page. I'm letting it run down my cheeks. I'm going to let it wrap itself around me and make space for it to go to bed with me tonight. It will have it's time, it's space, it's acknowledgement and then it will move on when it is done with me. And I will be okay afterword. In fact I will be better than okay, I will be free of that emotion until the next one because I let it flow through me without trying to control it, stop it. or stuff it for later. And every time I can let this sadness flow through me, it heals me from all the years I didn't know how to do it. All the more reason to make the space and invite the sadness in.
Be well.
