“Yeah, I know what happened was messed up, but it’s fine. I was fine.”
My client was processing when their mental health took a nosedive. They described a really toxic workplace culture that they had to keep returning to for far too long. Then they told me, oh, but it was fine.
First, let’s set aside the rant I want to make about how much we discount emotional pain in this culture (“sticks and stone may break your bones,” but words will absolutely break your heart, my friend).
If we’re not actively bleeding, we think we are supposed to soldier on. When there’s no community support for emotional pain, we don’t understand that it needs to be tended to for healing. So we put on the stiff upper lip and tell ourselves to get over it.
That’s basically gaslighting yourself: I shouldn’t feel hurt. There’s no room for me to deal with this, and no one else sees it, so it shouldn’t be here.
Secret messes can look like always having to be fine, even when you’re not.
We are trying to convince our minds that we’re not having the feelings we’re having. But the truth is, if you are angry, if you are sad, if you are depressed, if you’re hurt, you can’t make those feelings go away.
You also start to lose touch with yourself and your inner knowing, the more you shove your true feelings away. So it’s pretty toxic to say to yourself and to others that things are fine when they’re not.
Instead, can you find a place to get safe enough to start owning up to what you actually feel when things aren’t okay? It’s important to be able to own up to yourself and be witnessed by someone you trust that, actually this ISN’T fine.
The first step in any deep healing is self-honesty. From that place of acknowledging your pain, you will be able to find your way back to your confidence and trusting yourself, which is a million times better than “fine.”
If you need a place to rebuild your self-trust, maybe it’s time to book a chat with me.