I have been noticing particularly on Facebook a trend toward intellectualizing our personal emotional experiences. So when I go on Facebook, for example I recently saw a blog post written about a girl's experiences with sexuality. They weren't what a person might hope that a young girl going into marriage would experience. Here is where I thought it was interesting, in her blog post she shared her experience, but not really, because she tied it to a philosophical idea that she related as the cause of her experience. This set off a number of deeply heated debates on the issue, everyone moralizing what was right and what was wrong. To be fair, that was the tone of the blog,( I thought I did something right, but now I think it was wrong.) I am not writing to debate what was right or wrong. I think that is far to black and white, what I am here to talk about is why do we have to filter our experiences through a philosophical idea? Is there a reason that we need an external already recognized ideology to experience our emotions and give validity to our pain. Does this give back the control and create understanding and suddenly aha everything becomes right and my pain is eased? It may be that I want to focus on Going back in time and doing this differently. Or I may feel that I am so angry that this happened that I am going to criticize anything that comes anywhere near what I am assuming is why I am hurting.
One of the things I have come to understand in my own life is the process of grief. Anger and regret are part of that, so it becomes clear to me that what becomes a huge angry debate is touching on the grief processes that we are all going through. One of the saddest things that I have observed in the last few years in this culture is the discomfort we have with the grief of others. It seems that angry debates are far more acceptable and comfortable than a person writing a blog filled with honest emotion, particularly sadness and fear about whatever the event may be, In this case sexuality gone awry, but that could be betrayal, religion, lost opportunities, death, health problems, rejection and the list goes on. Any of these are painful experiences, and when we talk about sexuality in this list it is probably one of the most painful ways that we as people can be injured. It is so innate to who we are, that when not understood, distorted or used for another's gain, we are injured deeply. How sad is it in that injury that the real sadness and fear that haunts a person is the part of the experience that cannot be shared. We become "stupid" in the face of the sadness and fear of others. Often there is a timeline given for how long you should feel sad, which is really only given if the loss is considered "legitimate" , but if the loss is less understood, like the loss the girl described in her blog, or divorce, or betrayal of some kind, the sympathy, (notice I said sympathy, not empathy here) is weak and short and people fear themselves going to that place of loss and listening and most of us are left alone to hold our own pain. So, it becomes simple. The best way to talk about your pain without it being rejected is to make it into a ideological question, instead of just an experience that needs to be honored, respected and held gently, by ourselves and those around us. It seems to me that intellectualizing is easier than feeling.
So, in an honest effort to be real and give those around me permission to do so. I myself am struggling still with losses that leave me sometimes catching my breathe and trying not to cry. The betrayal of people that I have trusted, hopes lost in a child's death and pain and suffering of the people I love the most, but simply have to watch. I know that sometime the sadness will get better, it does some days, and others it is loud and I feel vulnerable. Watching my children harmed by those who should have loved and protected them still leaves me sometimes angry, sometimes heart broken. And I wonder what to trust in when the things that I thought I could trust………………
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