Keeping the pain within….
March 5, 2009 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Loneliness, Guilt & Depression
I know that this will sound strange for someone who writes a blog on grief but I am very insular, very shy about talking about emotions. I think that is why blogging works for me. I never feel as though I am sharing my emotions, maybe it is the barrier of the computer screen.
It means that I never – or rarely – ever tell my friends how I am feeling. I am always ‘fine’ because I don’t want to be one of those people who always seem to be downloading. This last fortnight has been tough for me which has led to some erratic blogging….and my friends are also suffering at the moment so I felt as though I had to deal with my emotions myself. The other day a friend called in and she needed a hug.
The funny thing is that in hugging her and feeling that friendship helped me….the hug helped me. It just made me think how reaching out to others can help you with your depression.
Anna, I don’t think it’s strange at all that you can blog about your feelings easier than expressing them in person. I am guilty of the same thing. It is much easier to write about feelings than to express them in person. I think, for me, that I am afraid I will make others uncomfortable if I talk about my feelings too much. I am also afraid that I will lose control and start to cry. I know that crying is good for the soul but I can do that privately so as not to burden others.
I agree with you also that giving emotional support to others makes one feel good. It is comforting to comfort others. Therefore I guess it would be good to open up to friends or family as they probably would love to help.
I go to a group called Fully Alive where we talk about many things regarding life and how we can make things better. One of the leaders brought up a good point at one meeting. She asked if we found it hard to accept help from others. Almost everyone said “yes”. Then she asked if we felt good when we helped someone out. Everyone said “yes”. She then told us to think about our answer. She said others very likely want to help us and by not accepting help we could be depriving them of the satisfaction of helping . It really gave us something to think about. I try to open up a bit more now.