In the aftershock of my partner’s sudden exit from my life, I got a lot of suggestions from friends and family. I was advised to count my blessings that he was gone, to let go, to get over it and to move on as quickly as possible.
I was plied with well-meaning platitudes such as, “Men are like buses: One leaves and another pulls in,” or “Just be here now,” or “It is all good.” Forgiveness was advised by my spiritually-minded friends as the quick ticket to recovery and the best way to demonstrate my love. Just let go and forgive, and the pain, along with the accompanying bewilderment, angst and panic, would miraculously disappear—so I was told and believed myself.
No matter that I was walking down the street feeling as full of holes as a Swiss cheese, ready to check myself into the nearest psychiatric hospital, commit some unspeakable act of vengeance or wander in front of a passing car. If I could have forgiven I would have, but meanwhile I wanted to strangle anyone who suggested it.
All too often I was encouraged to get up, take a class, make new friends, volunteer, hike or practice more hot yoga. I had already tried most of those things, and was doing everything in my power to pull myself together, but nothing was working. I learned that complicated grief has its own timetable.
Emotional Pain Makes People Uneasy
Beyond the first few weeks, our society does not easily tolerant the pain and grief that follow the severing of deep attachments. We give the bereaved a few months. A divorce or a precipitous breakup is most often excused and casually brushed aside, while infidelity has almost become a joke. Broken relationships have become so commonplace we never even think about the devastation involved, as we sweep the anguish of each story aside with a shrug.
In our happiness-obsessed, “Prozac nation,” we consider intense suffering an aberration or an indication of weakness. The anxiety, heartache, nausea, obsessing and grief that I experienced for more than two years coping with PTSD are examples of the kind of suffering we shunt to the catchall categories of depression or self-indulgence, and treat with drugs, if we treat them at all.
We acknowledge physical pain but talk little about the debilitation of emotional injuries and even stigmatize emotional and mental illness. I am now convinced huge numbers of people silently endure protracted experiences of psychic pain. We dislike and shun people we judge to be “wallowing” in personal suffering, so we work hard to hide our own, making it more difficult to get the help we need to recover.
Why? Because emotional pain makes people uncomfortable. Those who have not faced the depths of their own pain—and so few of us have—are doubly afraid or ill at ease when they see another suffering. If someone asks how we are, convention dictates we are to say, “Fine, thanks!” Or, if we do feel inclined to make some kind of authentic response, we sense that we’d better make it short—no details, please.
Even those who know we must be hurting and want to help probably feel awkward and do not know what to say. We all tend to be blind to the desolation of such life-transforming events—until we ourselves are mourning a loss. When one friend finally said, “I am so sorry this cruel thing happened to you. It must really hurt,” my heart melted with appreciation.
Adapted from “Love and the Mystery of Betrayal” —now available in print and ebook.
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From my own perspective as someone who has had cancer, I have noticed a phenomenon called “mirror terror.” It is very simply the terror someone feels when they see you–eater of kale, swimmer of laps, walker of dogs, and lover of life–hey, if YOU can get cancer, my God, so could I. And they freak out, or ignore you or whatever. It is irreverent I know, but I call these people the “be like you were and pronto” people. They just don’t want you to be different because it changes things. I’ve learned that these people can–and I say can, because it doesn’t always happen–cause us to betray ourselves by trying to make them comfortable. This betrayal of ourselves is the greatest betrayal of all. It costs us our power. It costs us our identity. It hurts so bad to pay in that coin.
Thank you, Susie, so well said—”the betrayal of ourselves is the greatest betrayal of all.”
I can totally agree with where you are coming from and what you are feeling and saying to be true: the breakup of a relationship is no different to a death — there is the grieving to work through at your OWN pace; and no-one but yourself can feel or tell you how to do this. You need to be able to TALK/ACT out your feelings to either yourself, or to someone who is prepared to completely LISTEN to YOU and give no advice. Most people know themselves better than anyone else, so hence know how to deal with LOSS – and just need empathy from others — nothing is Black or White. And yes, you will move on, but in your own time; for if you try to rush the grieving period, you will jump in and be HURT again, which is what so many of us do. Take care of yourself, first, as you are the most important person to yourself — that is something that has taken many of us many years to learn too.
I don’t think that we can say that a loss of relationship is no different than a death because it is different. I agree that there is significant loss and grieving in a loss of relationship, but it is much different than a loss by death. I have experienced both types of loss, I was divorced and then my father died and the latter was much different.
I have not lost my parents, so I do not know what that is like. But after my husband died, I thought I was prepared for losing a relationship, but found being abandoned much more difficult in many ways. Having the person you have bonded deeply with still walking the planet as if you no longer exist has its own set of subtle energetic reverberations that can be extremely disturbing. I devote a section in my book to exploring the differences in those grieving experiences.
I believe that it is a gift to be able to sit with either your own, or a another’s, emotional pain. Especially if you can do this, without doing or saying something, to negate the discomfort experienced.
If you have ever experienced being” unheard” by another, whilst you were trying to describe emotional pain, then you truly appreciate empathy when it is genuinely expressed.
Kate
Since we were kids, we have been allured to believe that life is beautiful.
When asked “how is life?”, we automatically reply that it’s beautiful…a god’s gift.
It seems as if there were a tacit agreement to dismiss all allusions to the fact that…perhaps…it would have been better not to be born.
But, notwithstanding how well this thought has been tabloidized, we cannot get rid of the unpleasant sensation that caused it, and, then, we lay the blame for the feelings on myriad other causes, but never on life itself.
Thank you, Bruno, for pointing out how we do not seem to be able to escape from “the unpleasant sensation” that stirs the deepest, existential questions — why are we here, what is the purpose of life? Who am I? What is the point of suffering? Einstein said there is only one question worth asking: “Is this a benevolent universe?” Pain pushes us to ask the question. I believe that the most terrible sensations deserve reverence, respect and a kind of bowing down before the enigmas they force on us.
We live in a death denying and death defying society.
If we love we will grieve, and that just shows the power of human attachment. I chose to educate people about grief and wrote several books as teaching tools to facilitate not only the bereaved but all who suffer loss. This was the gift from my losses. We need to teach others the reality of loss. They may not listen, but we will feel empowered telling our story.
Embrace pain, but then let it go.
Thank you Sandra, for this topic and your candidness. I liked the comments too. I thought I experienced pain through PTSD, fibro/RA and cancer. I grieved loss of my job and my ability to have children. A partner leaving is like a death but worse. It is more like a death sentence–“Look, there’s that woman whose husband left her.” The embarrassment is severe, and if he lies about you, destructive. Even supportive people dont know what to say except maybe that it ll get better. You dont want to share details but you need to. Especially in the case of abuse, the mixed shame and relief needs to be processed. I value my counselor (every therapist shoild have one) who has been with me through most of my married life, and miss talking to her about this loss. It is a loss of a huge component of one’s life, having a spouse walk away after 15 years. It’s never pretty, and the things they say always hurt. I already feel healthier and saner apart, but the emotions you described must be normal. In my case, religious convictions may preclude divorce, and living in limbo is not fun. But my standard response to “Are you okay?” Is simply, “I will be.” And that is the truth. The self doubt will go away and the effects of toxic mind games will fade. I’m making a list of fun things I’ve always wanted to do, and one of the bad things that happened in my marriage, to remind myself to be grateful. Thanks again for discussing this just as I needed it–I look foward to reading your book!
Malena, I am so sorry to hear about your loss. The pain is unbelievable. I resonate with ‘the death sentence’ — I called it “death by embarrassment”— the blow does kill something inside you. Coming to terms with that dying, finding a way to honor and revere and discover the sacredness in the suffering, that is what it has been about for me. Telling your story seems essential for reclaiming your live. For me writing about what happened was a lifeline to sanity. You sound like you are on a solid foundation, but I hope you will find someone/another therapist? to walk through this with you for the times when the foundation gets shaky. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for that. I definitely will get a counselor down here. I am enjoying all the comments on this thread–they are very intelligent, helpful and kind.
I think that a big chunk of my response toward emotional pain, either of the other or of myself, has been kind of wired and set into my brain and perceptions, essentially by these cultural patterns in which I and we live everyday…
Almost everybody and everything is telling us or reflecting back to us how to think about things…rarely does anyone teach us how to feel…and rarely do we learn to give ourselves the time, the space and the relational presence to feel things…
So when I am in emotional pain I know that there is a very big possibility of getting answers from others that reflect this cultural version of programmed responses…. I might even find within my self a part of me that has the same sort of responses….
Essentially it’s like a wired program that says “Pain is dangerous…don´t go in there”, “Please find the nearest exit”, “Numb yourself”, “Be strong!” etc etc.
And how life alienating that turns out to be…
For me one of the biggest therapeutic or encounter moments is when the other is really resonating and listening and seeing the pain that I am in touch with and that I am trying to express…instead of trying to save me or educate me how to deal with that…
I see that it is rather retraumatizing when you feel ready or you need to connect, relate and express your pain and the other person is just trying to get you to smother the emotional place…..that hurts more.
Sometimes it is hard even to be be friendly with our own hurts and pains…
But they are there and they also have a voice or something to say or something they need…Sometimes it is even possible to have the need to visit and revist certain places until they we can move through them and can carry ourselves forward…
Malena,
I’m so sorry you’re going through what you’re going through, but, it does get better. After a 24 year marriage, I am also divorced – happily I might add! The divorce took two years, and I can only describe those 24 months as the worst AND best two years of my life. I learned so much about myself and others. Initially, I really thought my life was over. I thought I would never recover. I felt as though my soul was raped. I felt I was stripped of everything I knew and worked so hard for – from material possessions to the three relationships I had with my ex-husband and two adult children. I was unable to see the big picture until I gained some physical and emotional distance from the relationship. When those blinders came off, I was able to discover myself and concentrate on healing. I was and am very fortunate to have an amazing group of friends (mostly therapists as that’s what my profession is), and they just listened and held me as I had my regularly scheduled nervous breakdowns. It still amazes me that the one thing that almost destroyed me strengthened me in a way that is truly miraculous – both in my personal and professional life – and I have GOD and my beautiful friends to thank for that. Malena, you are going to blossom and I am so excited for you!