Pain - the ghost within us

Pain is a fickle thing. It exists and yet it somehow doesn’t, a mere feeling in our minds that's all encompassing. Physical pain is easy to pinpoint, usually, unless it is a pseudo-inflammatory response caused by your body believing its in pain. Those are weird. Emotional pain can be similar but not always. Emotional pain can be very immediate and felt as something is happening to you, or it can be felt days, months, or years later. My emotional pain was felt like that. It was not immediate, it was over time as the dam within me broke from holding back years of pain I refused to feel; pain that went unchecked and unnoticed as I was afraid to let it loose. 

You see, pain can be scary. It can be destructive and something that causes you to lash out against those you care about. It can cause you to react in ways you never dreamed of because it blinds you with hurt. Pain can be trying to breath underwater and receiving nothing but burning saltwater, and you aren’t aware of where your limbs are flailing when you’re drowning. 

When I feel emotional pain, it is as if someone dug out my chest cavity and left an empty void in its place. It is a vast space of nothingness paired with a burning sensation throughout my body and as if someone is wrapping their hands tighter and tighter around my throat. Eventually, I cry. I cry big, big tears that seem like they take all my energy with them as they fall down my face. I cry like it is the only thing I am capable of, and in that moment, it is. What I’ve unfortunately learned is that pain must be felt to be released. Otherwise, the pain will harbor itself in you and fester, bleeding into new experiences unless you learn to feel it and let go. 

I’d allowed pain to take root in me, I created my identity around it and did not know how to let it go. I was so unaccustomed to feeling that I did not realize the process to releasing my pain. I spent two and a half years emotionally numb. Then I met someone who had me feeling something I didn’t think I was capable of, love. The love brought with it all the pain, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t do anything but feel pain. I wanted the pain to end so I ended it with him and went back to not feeling for a few months before I realized it was unavoidable. The pain followed me and oozed into all my experiences, tainting them, and creating resentment towards myself for how I reacted. There were moments that aggressively aroused the pain and these caused all my hurt to be unintentionally directed at those who cared for me, reacting in the present from past experiences and pain. It was hurtful to all involved.

There was a central loneliness to my pain. What I felt from my experiences was a pain that hollowed me out. I became a broken encasement of who I was, and I didn’t know what to do besides ignore it until it went away. Well, ignore it and drown it with alcohol. I was haunted by what could’ve been, what failed, how I let myself get so broken down, and worst of all the love I believed to be pure that caused me so much pain. Pain and love became inseparable for me and that affected my future relationships. I was distant to everybody I met, and it took a lot of effort to get to know who I was behind my wall of who I should be. Yet inside, beneath who I believed I needed to be for acceptance, was a girl who hurt day in and day out. A girl who cried herself to sleep each night and woke up with fresh tears each morning. A girl who did not know if the sun would ever shine on her again and was mentally consumed with why I couldn’t just make it stop. Why I didn’t have the control over my own thoughts and emotions to let go and be OK again. 

See pain is a feral beast that does not yield easily to our desire for letting go. It’s sticky and clings to you like wet clothes. It’s easier for the pain to remain than it is to be excavated. I don’t have the answer to why that is, but I think it is because pain is so hard to sit with. Relating back to physical pain, we usually take something, or ice the injury, or do something to ease/distract away the pain. Emotional pain seemingly is no different. Releasing it is hard. It is easy to get stuck in and believe there is no other side. It’s too easy to feel alone and like nobody can understand what you’re experiencing. It’s easy to withdraw and succumb to the feeling it is never ending. Yet everything ends. Each moment is temporary and fleeting with no single moment outweighing the entirety of our lives. It’s fluid and everchanging. 

When it comes to feeling the pain, there may not be a choice in when the pain is felt, but a choice exists once you realize you’re feeling pain. That’s when you choose to give yourself space to feel it. It is the awareness and presence you allow yourself to confront the uncomfortable feelings and let them escape that begins to open the door of this choice. Trust me, sometimes pain's arrival is extremely inconvenient, like being in the middle of a workday and you’re randomly bombarded with an overwhelming need to cry. It’s human. Maybe it’s difficult to feel those feelings in that moment, but once the workday finishes it is important to return to them despite how scary it seems to reface that overwhelming feeling. Or you can just cry in the bathroom and hope nobody walks in. Yes, I’ve done this because sometimes when it hits you, it hits you and there is no pushing it back down. Overtime, it gets easier to pick your processing times, but allow yourself grace for the times it’s not.  

Releasing pain is not something I've been doing alone. I met some incredible people over the years that became close friends who were patient with me and let me unfurl towards them over time, my looking glasses. They accepted my pain and that made it less scary. I realized I didn’t have to carry the burden alone. I could allow myself to feel and be messy and occupy space around me without fear. With practice, it becomes easier to slowly release the pain that holds us back. Positive experiences that contradict the painful ones can help your mind loosen its grip on the perceived outcome and recognize that not every similar situation leads to pain.  It’s a continuous journey to let go of pain, but it leaves you with room to rebuild your internal world and that is worth it. 

Much love,

Jen