Tears Talk, Part III
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Good Grief
"I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and one that is broken, sad as a woman who is growing old."
Jean Rhys
It’s Monday, another sacred morning with Sophie. Together, we are writing a eulogy for our mutual friend, Beth. She died of a Lupus-related heart attack on Sunday at the age of 44. When Sophie received news of Beth’s fatal accident, she immediately got into her car and came over. Once again, she is on my couch. And I’m in my blue chair. But, I am trembling with anxiety. She is filled with grief.
Struggling to calm my nerves, I blurt, "Anxiety is my signal. I must be avoiding how awful I truly feel about this." Beth was a caring, generous woman from my Friday women’s group. I had cried when I first got the call about losing her, but not since.
"I know it sounds irreverent," starts Sophie with a giggle. "But Beth would have found it hilarious that she died in the church bathroom." My friend, who is a Sandra Bullock look-alike, begins bubbling with a mixture of laughter and tears. She sits Indian-style in the center of my couch, slapping her knee with her right hand and wiping tears with the back of the hand that holds her Cinnamint tea. "Can’t you just hear her making a joke about it? She had such an amazing sense of humor."
I can’t even muster a chuckle. My Mindy Smith C.D. is sending soulful wails around the living room in a way that now feels intrusive. I get up from my chair, cross the room, and turn her off.
"It’ll feel weird going to group on Friday without Beth there. I can’t imagine moving on without her. I wish we didn’t have to continue this stupid study on Grace."
Sophie sets her tea on my kid-battered coffee table, and folds her hands into her lap, reflectively. With such a calm pose, it looks like she’s praying. Then, she tilts her chin at me, nudging my perspective. "I know how you feel. But I think grace is exactly what we need right now."
As usual, Sophie is wise, sensitive, and right as rain. But instead of responding, I hand her a pen and paper so she can record memories of our dear friend for the funeral. Then, I collapse back into my comfy blue chair like a nervous overweight ragdoll, and remind myself, Breathe Cheri. Just breathe.
Paralyzed with Pain
Anxiety often masks tears. It can be a symptom of unprocessed grief. It creeps in when we don’t feel permitted to cry, wail, weep, wallow, suffer or grieve. Or, if we succumb to sadness, it attacks when we place unrealistic parameters on our pain: We sniffle a little, but dare not let grief disrupt our composure, contort our face, or knock us to our knees; We cry, but only in culturally-defined permissable settings, at a funeral, for example, but never in our professional lives or in line at the grocery store. We reflect on our losses, but only for a short season before feeling the need to pull ourselves together and ‘move on.’ Then, anxiety bubbles up like a warning.
Anxiety can signal that we’re too accustomed to strong emotional kicks in the butt: We engage in vigorous mental aerobics to shake unwanted feelings free. We scramble to find diversions. We race away from ourselves on relentless treadmills, wanting to forget how deeply we mourn. But then suddenly, we can’t even do a spiritual sit up. We lose our ability to feel.
Worried that we’ll never again enjoy the taste of anything but tears, we ask ourselves where the upbeat, passionate, determined sides of our personalities have gone. When attitude-muscles have always worked for us, it’s terrifying to feel useless, paralyzed, broken.
And yet, cultural messages crop up everywhere: T.V. commercials chant "Just Do It" while the image of a well-toned woman running down a tree-lined street, glows with sweat and pride at the ability to make life happen according to her own terms; Sermons from the church pulpit suggest–when things go wrong, pray harder, aim higher; Spiritual self-help books offer challenges–focus less on yourself and more on other people’s problems. And so we struggle to pull ourselves together, patch up our pain.
Every last ounce of energy is spent trying to avoid depression. Perhaps, inadvertently, we are walking right into depression's cause.
In so many ways, culture ties heavy stones around our necks, cautioning us to stay in shallow emotional waters lest we drown. But if we never learn to swim, what happens when tides rush in, and we’re swamped with unexpected deep?
Nobody tells us that if we muffle our tears, we risk silencing our souls.
This is Part III in a series about listening to depression. To read the first two posts, check out Tears Talk, Part I and Tears Talk, Part II.
"I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and one that is broken, sad as a woman who is growing old."
Jean Rhys
It’s Monday, another sacred morning with Sophie. Together, we are writing a eulogy for our mutual friend, Beth. She died of a Lupus-related heart attack on Sunday at the age of 44. When Sophie received news of Beth’s fatal accident, she immediately got into her car and came over. Once again, she is on my couch. And I’m in my blue chair. But, I am trembling with anxiety. She is filled with grief.
Struggling to calm my nerves, I blurt, "Anxiety is my signal. I must be avoiding how awful I truly feel about this." Beth was a caring, generous woman from my Friday women’s group. I had cried when I first got the call about losing her, but not since.
"I know it sounds irreverent," starts Sophie with a giggle. "But Beth would have found it hilarious that she died in the church bathroom." My friend, who is a Sandra Bullock look-alike, begins bubbling with a mixture of laughter and tears. She sits Indian-style in the center of my couch, slapping her knee with her right hand and wiping tears with the back of the hand that holds her Cinnamint tea. "Can’t you just hear her making a joke about it? She had such an amazing sense of humor."
I can’t even muster a chuckle. My Mindy Smith C.D. is sending soulful wails around the living room in a way that now feels intrusive. I get up from my chair, cross the room, and turn her off.
"It’ll feel weird going to group on Friday without Beth there. I can’t imagine moving on without her. I wish we didn’t have to continue this stupid study on Grace."
Sophie sets her tea on my kid-battered coffee table, and folds her hands into her lap, reflectively. With such a calm pose, it looks like she’s praying. Then, she tilts her chin at me, nudging my perspective. "I know how you feel. But I think grace is exactly what we need right now."
As usual, Sophie is wise, sensitive, and right as rain. But instead of responding, I hand her a pen and paper so she can record memories of our dear friend for the funeral. Then, I collapse back into my comfy blue chair like a nervous overweight ragdoll, and remind myself, Breathe Cheri. Just breathe.
Paralyzed with Pain
Anxiety often masks tears. It can be a symptom of unprocessed grief. It creeps in when we don’t feel permitted to cry, wail, weep, wallow, suffer or grieve. Or, if we succumb to sadness, it attacks when we place unrealistic parameters on our pain: We sniffle a little, but dare not let grief disrupt our composure, contort our face, or knock us to our knees; We cry, but only in culturally-defined permissable settings, at a funeral, for example, but never in our professional lives or in line at the grocery store. We reflect on our losses, but only for a short season before feeling the need to pull ourselves together and ‘move on.’ Then, anxiety bubbles up like a warning.
Anxiety can signal that we’re too accustomed to strong emotional kicks in the butt: We engage in vigorous mental aerobics to shake unwanted feelings free. We scramble to find diversions. We race away from ourselves on relentless treadmills, wanting to forget how deeply we mourn. But then suddenly, we can’t even do a spiritual sit up. We lose our ability to feel.
Worried that we’ll never again enjoy the taste of anything but tears, we ask ourselves where the upbeat, passionate, determined sides of our personalities have gone. When attitude-muscles have always worked for us, it’s terrifying to feel useless, paralyzed, broken.
And yet, cultural messages crop up everywhere: T.V. commercials chant "Just Do It" while the image of a well-toned woman running down a tree-lined street, glows with sweat and pride at the ability to make life happen according to her own terms; Sermons from the church pulpit suggest–when things go wrong, pray harder, aim higher; Spiritual self-help books offer challenges–focus less on yourself and more on other people’s problems. And so we struggle to pull ourselves together, patch up our pain.
Every last ounce of energy is spent trying to avoid depression. Perhaps, inadvertently, we are walking right into depression's cause.
In so many ways, culture ties heavy stones around our necks, cautioning us to stay in shallow emotional waters lest we drown. But if we never learn to swim, what happens when tides rush in, and we’re swamped with unexpected deep?
Nobody tells us that if we muffle our tears, we risk silencing our souls.
This is Part III in a series about listening to depression. To read the first two posts, check out Tears Talk, Part I and Tears Talk, Part II.
