Originally posted on FB on 12-23-12

When you swallow something that isn’t good for you, your body has a way of dealing with it. Say it is spoiled milk or meat. You may notice that it isn’t quite right when you eat it, and spit it out. Or, it may be mixed up with other things and you don’t figure out early enough that it is a bit off. Fortunately your body knows better and will end up getting that out of you pretty fast one way or another. Generally you will throw it up, and while the throwing up part never feels good, you invariably feel so much better once you have gotten it over with.

So why do we suppress our emotions? When we take in something bad, something difficult to process, why do we in our society do our darnedest to not cry or yell? These are ways of getting out the bad emotions. I’m not saying that it is a good idea to fake being happy all the time – that too can cause problems. In fact, that is part of the problem. We need to experience all emotions, but we also need to know how to deal with the ones that overwhelm us.

It is OK to cry. It isn’t a sign of weakness. It doesn’t lessen your status as a “man” or as an “adult”. It is OK to yell and scream sometimes. I’ve read several books on grief recently and they all say that loudly expressing your grief is really healthy and helps you start to heal faster. Holding it in is exactly like holding in that spoiled milk or meat – you’ll just feel sicker.

I didn’t fully process my parent’s death when they died 6 weeks apart when I was 25. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t feel that I had time to. I had to handle the estate and then take care of myself. I had to get a full-time job. I had to take care of an old, rambling house. I had to figure out how to sell off my father’s car that he just bought. I didn’t have much help from my family on these matters. My aunt gave some money to tide me through for a bit. My brother was less than helpful, and in fact made the situation worse. My priest performed the funeral service, but didn’t tell me anything about grief. The hospice workers also didn’t prepare me. I didn’t know how to handle the pain, and the only model I had was how my family had handled everything big in the past. Sadly, that model was to just endure it quietly. My friends also abandoned me, one even saying that she didn’t know how to help me now – so she just left. This was common. Nobody called, and nobody came by. So my grief was multiplied- my parents had died, and it seemed like my friendships had died as well. Two years later I ended up in the mental hospital because of my grief and inability to process it.

When you are grieving, everything seems far away and not connected. It is as if you are looking at your life from far within yourself, and hearing everything as if it is through a paper tube. There is a lot of distance, both physically and psychologically. You may feel like you are walking through quicksand or molasses. Everything goes very slowly. It is hard to take care of everyday tasks, and so it is almost impossible to take care of unusual tasks like tending to your soul’s needs.

Grief isn’t just over a physical death. You can grieve over any loss or change. Changing a job, whether voluntarily or involuntarily can bring on grief. Divorce, whether you wanted it or not can do the same. Any change – moving to a different town or a house, having a baby, getting a new health diagnosis, can cause big emotions. It is important to recognize this and process this.

Bottle these feelings up and it is the same as swallowing your own sickness. It will only make you feel worse. Get it out! Yell, cry, wail. Complain to a trusted friend who can handle it. Seek therapy. I’ve heard something I like that I’ll share with you. There is a Jewish saying that it is important to have friends, and if you don’t have friends, it is OK to buy them – and this is the source of why it is OK to have a therapist. A therapist or a counselor is a paid friend.

So, my suggestion to you is to first recognize you are sick with grief and pain from a loss, and then to get it out. Don’t bottle it in. Crying is excellent medicine. If you don’t start to feel like your regular self in about a month, or if your grief is just too much for you, please seek professional help. Seeking this help isn’t a sign of weakness – to NOT seek help is. Self-medicating also isn’t the answer – it just puts a Band-Aid over a severed artery.

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