As a therapist, I hear girls and women say things like “I don’t want to be like that” or “I don’t want to think that way” or “I don’t want to feel like this” whenever they tell me about a relationship conflict, a disappointment at work, or past trauma – especially sexual trauma. They never let me in on exactly what it is that they don’t want to be like, feel, or think. Instead, it’s like an afterthought in their story, a skipped-over blank space that remains unspoken unless I dig in and ask more questions. And trust me, if I’m your therapist, you’re going to get used to me digging in – A LOT. I can’t help it really, it’s just my way. I have this huge mental highlighter, and your blank spaces are just glowing bright yellow in my mind. At some point in our counseling session, I’m going to bring us back to all that yellow skipped-over blank space.
Why? Because that yellow blank space is not blank at all! It’s full of dismissed or denied thoughts and feelings that you don’t like to speak out loud. And unfortunately, when you deny your feelings, edit yourself, and try to keep things unspoken, you’re creating and ignoring (at the same time, very impressive of you!) emotional pain. It might be because you really don’t want to feel something gross or scary, or you’re judging yourself and fearful that I’m going to judge you, or you just have an innate sense that it’s wrong to feel anger and other negative things. (Angry and negative feelings are not wrong, believe it or not. We’ll discuss that in another blog.) Whatever the reason, the result is the same: Emotional pain that is dismissed or denied will continue to show up in very dysfunctional ways.
For example, think about a time recently when someone said something to you that was offensive and hurtful. Something that really stung. And out of shock, embarrassment, or maybe just the fact that you don’t know this person very well, you brushed it aside and tried to move on in your day. But, really, did you move on? Or did that image and experience come back in your mind at any point, but you kept saying to yourself “don’t be angry” or “don’t worry about it, why am I worrying about it?” or “I need to just get over it, it’s not a big deal, I’m supposed to forgive people!” But instead of getting over it, it just keeps coming back around. Even at odd times. And you get irritable and snap at people, or you just numb out and can’t interact, or you eat your feelings by inhaling a lot of cake and ice cream. (Maybe you do all three. Therapists certainly do all three. I’m a therapist, and I have definitely done all three.)
I get it. It’s inevitable in some ways. We cope very poorly with hurtful experiences when we’re not taught how to take care of our emotional pain. If caring for emotional pain in healthy ways was modeled to us over and over, my job wouldn’t exist. There would be no need for therapy. And I wish that were true and I could somehow work myself right out of a job. But it’s not true – especially for girls and women. That’s why I worked so hard to become a therapist, so I can provide a safe space, free of judgment, for you to process emotionally painful things.
In the next month, I’m going to post several blogs in a series about this topic. I’m going to talk about why dismissing emotional pain is a go-to response for girls and women, how to stop editing yourself and start speaking your own truth in order to heal.
I had to go to graduate school for counseling psychology to learn how to care for my emotional pain in healthy ways. Lucky for you, I highlighted all the important stuff in yellow.
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