Missing in Plain Sight

We are a society of escape. We are a society of avoidance. If I just ignore “it”, or hide from “it”, or bury “it” down deep, I won’t have to deal with “it”. “It” will resolve itself. If I can just stay positive enough, I will feel happy forever, melting all my pain and sadness away. How many hours have we spent mindlessly scrolling social media, watching YouTube or binge-watching Netflix just to “get a break” or “decompress” from the stress, pain, sadness or trauma that circumstances can bring?

I can tell you for myself, personally, it has been a lot of hours over the last 8 months since Chris’s OCD exploded. In late October thru December last year, I spent every night on the couch, trying to escape reality through binge watching tv and emotional eating. In January, I stopped the emotional eating, but still found myself seeking comfort from the fictitious relationships of those I saw in the flickering light of the tv, long into the hours of early morning.

Having spent a significant amount of time working on myself on my personal growth journey, I could recognize the unhealthy habit loop I had settled into. I thought that this mindless binge watching was my way of processing the emotional trauma I had been through. As the days and weeks went on, however, while I was feeling better on the surface, I was still drawn to these late-night mindless binges.

In March I started this blog and thought it was going to be my way to cope and process and to a certain extent, it has been. After a few weeks, I found myself avoiding writing on the blog, putting my advocacy work with OCDNH before anything else. I felt blocked, but I wasn’t sure exactly why. June rolled around and I realized that I was pretty much in the same emotional state that I had been in since April. My morning practice of meditation, gratitude and affirmations had helped me to regain some semblance of normalcy, but by June, I stopped my routine. I asked myself repeatedly, why was this happening?

In late May / early June, a close friend lost her mom unexpectedly to a stroke. I jumped into action, offering to help in any way that I could. I kept myself busy, organizing a meal train and going to their house to help. A week or so later, I found out another friend’s step dad was in hospice, also unexpected and he also passed rather quickly once home. Within a few days a wall of grief hit me like a ton of bricks and at first, I didn’t understand as I really did not know either of the people who passed. Thanks to a lot of mindfulness practice, I was able to observe my emotions (still crying my eyes out, but able to look at it without judgement) and I realized that this untimely and unexpected passing of my friends’ parents was the catalyst for me to start to process and grieve the mortality of my own, aging parents.

My mom and dad are still alive and in relatively good health, but they are getting older. I did not realize that I was holding onto this sadness, this mourning of their youth and grieving for their mortality. Once I came to this realization, it was like a door that I had been unintentionally holding shut opened, and I began to truly process not only this sadness, but also the trauma from the OCD explosion. Over the last few years, I have worked hard to show myself compassion and it is because of this that I recognized that now, more than ever, I needed to be kind and compassionate with myself.

I withdrew into myself, but this time with the intention of really feeling and accepting the pain, sadness and anger. I no longer felt numb, instead I was feeling the intense rawness of these emotions we so often attempt to avoid. Avoidance, a prominent theme in OCD and, a prominent theme for all of us.

I had no idea that my mindless scrolling of social media, my avoidance of writing for the blog and my endless binge watching was my way to avoid processing the emotions I had locked inside. I consider myself to be very in tune with myself, I practice meditation, mindfulness, radical acceptance, self-compassion, affirmations, visualizations, and more. What I failed to realize, was that since cultivating and strengthening these skills, I have not had to process something as profound as the OCD explosion or the mortality of my parents. This was all new.

It has been a little over a month now and while I would like to say that the world is all sunshine and rainbows, it isn’t and let’s face it, that is not reality. I am happy, I am joyful, I am having more moments of joy than not, however I am also sad, hurt, angry and scared. One of the greatest take aways for me has been realizing that this is what living truly is. It is about the roller coaster. It is about sitting in discomfort and accepting that it is here instead of pushing it away artificially or avoiding it with meaningless distractions. It is about being ok with not being ok. It is about acknowledging the suck while leaning into it, and not pretending everything is rosy.

I recently came across an article on toxic positivity and I was really intrigued. For those who may not be familiar, toxic positivity is when we try to gloss over the reality of someone’s emotions in the name of remaining positive. It is when we are being sympathetic, instead of empathetic. We are unconsciously pushing away the pain someone else is experiencing so that we can avoid it for ourselves and remain guarded. As I read the article, I realized that while I was well intended, I had most certainly contributed to a version of positivity that was in fact, toxic. I am so grateful that this article crossed my path when it did, when I was truly open and ready for it. Each day I am learning to process uncomfortable emotions while still having moments of joy in my life. I realized that in my efforts to help people to be more positive, I was unintentionally encouraging them to keep their emotional processing door closed.

Throughout my personal growth journey, I have understood that it is ok to feel something, an emotion, but misunderstood what to do after that. I thought that we then wanted to move on quickly from the discomfort in order to not wallow in it and to shift our focus to what we can learn from the situation or how we can resolve it. That we strived to look at things in a more positive light. I did not realize that there was a break down in my understanding of this concept. I had essentially abused the theory, working, without realizing, to actually bury the emotions and not allow myself to process them. Something I have learned from Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy for OCD in these last 8 months is that the goal is not to push away the negative emotions, or to replace them with positive feelings, but instead to accept these emotions and the discomfort that accompanies them. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has taught me that the goal is to sit in the discomfort, and realize that we can still live, laugh, have joyful moments and excel in life even when feeling this way. Discomfort and suffering are not to be avoided, but instead to be embraced.

In one of my new favorite books, Comfortable with Uncertainty, American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron states: “What keeps us unhappy and stuck in a limited view of reality is our tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain, to seek security and avoid groundlessness, to seek comfort and avoid discomfort.”

We have been fooled into thinking that happiness is a constant state of bliss. That discomfort is bad and to be avoided. This, my friends, is one of the largest sources of false news out there. The highlight reel that we present on social media is fantastic for showing others exactly that – the highlights. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that others do not suffer as we do. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that something is wrong if we do not feel happy all the time. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that we must wear a mask of perfection for everyone, including our family, and even ourselves.

We are real. We are flawed. We are human. We are emotional beings. We are meant to feel our emotions, to react to them, to allow them to be present. It is ok to cry. It is ok to feel hurt. It is ok to be sad. It is ok to not always smile. It is not ok to feel that you must fake it and that you cannot be your true self. It is not ok if you are feeling sad and or numb more often than anything else, this may be a sign of depression and you may need professional help. It is ok to need help.

How many of us are going through the motions every day: smiling, laughing, bringing goodies to work or school, doing our best to look like things are “normal” on the outside when we are feeling empty and numb on the inside? We are missing in plain sight. We are physically present, but emotionally not there. We are hiding, avoiding, pretending, keeping our minds constantly stimulated and our schedules fully loaded in order to try and ignore the gnawing pain we have buried within. Life is really freaking hard. It is time that wear this badge with honor and not with shame.

We must get silent and still in order to listen to our inner guide, to our emotional self and to feel and process our true, raw emotions. We must open that door to emotional processing and embrace the discomfort, and the suck. Make no mistake, this process is really freaking hard. You are allowing yourself to be vulnerable, to lower your shield and bare your weaknesses. When you face the pain, when you sit in the discomfort though, something truly amazing happens – you start to feel more comfortable. You see, when we keep pushing something away, it starts to grow, to get legs and before we know it, a monster has been born. When we sit and face the monster, we come to realize, in time, that it was not as mighty as it seemed.

Earlier I stated that it is ok to need help. This is yet another concept that we treat as a scarlet letter, stemming from the limiting belief/story that we are not good enough. Have you ever watched a child struggle with something to the point of frustration, waiting for them to ask for help, knowing that all they need is just a little support to be successful? In this moment we want to help, and we place no judgement on the child because they need it. Yet, when we need help, we chastise and demoralize ourselves. We get upset with ourselves and we tell ourselves that others will judge us because we need a little support and guidance. We encourage our friends to seek help or to accept our help. We don’t judge others for needing help, yet here we are beating ourselves up over it. Can we agree that this is no longer serving us and is really holding us back from living a life of joy?

If getting quiet and still in order to process your emotions seems too daunting a task, it is ok to ask for help. If whatever you are trying to process seems to big for you to take on by yourself, then don’t, ask for and accept help. Help can come in various forms: therapy, support groups, online communities, family, friends, sponsors, service animals, etc. There is no right or wrong answer here if you start to get the support and guidance that you need. If you aren’t sure where to turn for help, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration are free to use and can connect you with local resources. You can also email me and I will help, however I can.

Over the last few weeks I have started talking about my feelings with some close friends and family more, I have gotten back to my mindfulness & meditation practice and I have been focusing on being exceptionally kind and gentle with myself. Thanks to the generosity of a great friend, I have had my first ever reiki sessions. I am still processing, and the more open to the process and willing I am to be present and embrace the discomfort and the suck, the more I am learning about my experience and about myself. I love to plan and schedule things, however I have accepted that I cannot schedule or put a time limit on this. I am focusing on the consistent actions that I can take to move myself forward and not on exactly how I am going to get from point A to point B.

This willingness to be vulnerable, to be open and to be present has been unbelievably freeing. After months of avoiding the blog and writing, something I love to do, I found myself drawn to write this post. I am becoming stronger and wiser. I am leaning into the discomfort that vulnerability brings and, in the process, working on being more empathetic. I no longer want to unknowingly support the culture of toxic positivity. Instead, I want to help others open the door that leads to the gnawing, raw emotions we have buried for too long. I want to help bring the emotionally distant to the present and help them discover the power they possess to create joy in their lives despite their discomfort and pain.

How do you lean into discomfort and embrace the suck?