BLOG 92: Fine, Thank you

“There is a tendency in this day and age not to own our pain; to not cry out at unfairness, not to state our misery. It is the convention to always state that we are happy enough with the smallest of mercies” Jacqueline T Hinds Author ‘That River in Egypt’

England, especially the south east of England where I live, made the perfect backdrop to the novel That River In Egypt. There are few places on this planet where denial thrives as vigorously. We don’t like to admit to how we feel. We must always be upbeat and if we have nothing good to say…say nothing at all.

It is our mantra to suppress. We cannot be a burden, we must bear pain, misfortune and misery and find the silver lining… and above all we must be cheerful.

Visitor to hospital: How are you feeling?

Bedridden: Fine thank you

Friend: Things okay since the divorce?

Divorcee: Never better

Social Worker: Managing okay?

Impoverished: Can’t complain

Carry the line of questioning on and the bedridden will tell you they are better off than someone with a worse disease, a divorcee will tell you they are better off than a battered wife and the impoverished will tell you poverty is good for the soul.

It seems unseemly to tell the truth and admit misfortune... oh no we must grit our teeth and bear our pain as if we were giving birth on the anesthetists day off. True Grit eh? Aren’t we all to be commended for our strength?

Actually…. No.

Suppression is bad for you. It means nothing is dealt with. It means we have not acknowledged where we are. It is not the way our frail bodies are programmed to function. We are little more than a flesh and bones version of a pressure cooker.

Sooner or later the pressure gets too much. All that is suppressed will find it way out.

Culturally some of us are more able to take the consequences: My ex was a charming Celt who was deeply schooled in the art of suppression. The whole family was trained to suppress everything until a surplus of alcohol at a wedding, wake or christening meant it could all spill out as inappropriate rage. But then… what is an Irish wedding, wake or christening without a fight?

Unfortunately, we all can’t be Irish.

Life is terribly unfair at times. And yet for many of us we are not allowed to voice this.

It is like there is a scale of pain whereby one may only express what they feel if they are experiencing the worse possible outcome.

1. Only express a health problem if it is cancer (and incurable at that)

2. Only express abandonment if your partner dies (and young at that)

3. Only express financial problems if you are in the 3^rd world (and have had a natural disaster in the past 30 days)

Never, never say what you are feeling even if you feel frightened, lost or drowning… never, never let any one know life with problems involving health, love or security can suck the meaning out of existence. DENY. SUPPRESS. And when in doubt suppress some more … oh and don’t forget to smile. Quick state the fail-safe line:

THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE WORSE OFF THAN ME

But this is daft. We know that everything is relative. If you had realistic expectations for a healthy life then loose a limb… you have every right to be down about it. You don’t need to hear that you only lost one limb so be grateful. You don’t need to feel guilt that you miss your limb. You do need to be able to express your feelings. You do need to be able to own them; you do need to face the despair in order to move on. But what do you do when the custom is to suppress. When it goes against our design to keep it all in... what happens to all the clouds ignored in favour of a glint of silver lining?

Our emotional responses to what life throws at us become hidden deep in the mind. When we will not allow our minds to process this information it all becomes buried and almost consciously forgotten about. But what we really forget is that our sub-conscious is a very powerful medium! It will not allow us to carry this behaviour on forever and eventually the suppressed emotions will re-surface, and usually at the least appropriate time.

Unfortunately there are not just enough Irish families to go around. Even if you adopt one there just won’t be enough gatherings of those most likely to forgive while you whilst you ruin their best day by having fisty cuffs with Cousin Sean in the car-park.

Over time these undealt with feelings will find other ways of being expressed. Most commonly it turns inward and manifests in self harm. Often this harmful behaviour manifests as anxiety, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, cutting or self-loathing. Yup… not facing up to the emotions stirred up by the unfairness, the random blows and misfortunes of life is really not good for you.

Suppressing ruins your health in more ways than that though.

Saying everything is fine when it is not, can result in some very serious illnesses and complaints. You think you are being great by looking at the Brightside but in fact, suppressed emotion over time irreversibly damages your heart muscle and cardiac function; in fact it can lead to heart disease. Keeping emotions bottled-up inadvertently causes our blood pressure to rise which means the heart has to work harder to achieve the same degree of circulation as it did with lower blood pressure. In order to achieve this, the lungs must try and keep up with the oxygen demand that will also have increased. If the body has to maintain this level of function it will become weary over time and start to deteriorate as it struggles to cope.

So tell me… what is so wrong with owing it?

What’s so wrong about answering an enquiry with: “My Life?... it’s pretty terrible right now, and I don’t feel great about it”.

Cause once it’s out there. Once it is owned… you can close the chapter on those emotions.

I’m not saying wallow in it, but you should acknowledge where you ARE. Sometimes there just is a rotten period of your life.

Sometimes life is bloody unfair.

Sometimes you don’t get what you deserve.

Sometimes the toast lands butterside down…almost everytime.

So what is so awful about admitting it.

The next time someone asks how things are when things are the furthest point from fine, skip the “Fine, Thank you”. Lets just say it, the truth, short and sweet, smile and past the chardonnay.

Say it… “My job?… it’s pretty shit and I hate it”. “ My Wife?... she’s shagging the milkman and I don’t like it”. What ever it is… just express it. Feel it. Feel the rawness of the ugly emotion and let people know where you are at.

Denial… it does you no good at all. If you don’t believe me, rent NETWORK (1976) and look what happened to the thousands of repressed people of New York. (It‘s quite something when they all ended up opening their windows and yelling "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!" into the night sky).

Better out than in I say… otherwise you’ll just end up going inappropriately crazy without the benefit of an Irish family to forgive you.

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