Thursday 5 March 2020

Private agonies

When I was young I used to think that although a few people were psychologically screwed-up and overwhelmed by life, most of us were healthy, well-adjusted individuals who found life easy to deal with.

It's only now, with a lifetime's experience behind me, that I realise that actually the vast majority of people are in some way psychologically damaged and find life an endless struggle. Very few people are lucky enough to have got through life without traumatic or calamitous experiences of some kind, experiences that often leave life-long mental and emotional scars.

Just scratch the surface of someone's seemingly calm exterior and you can open quite a can of worms. It could be something as simple as persistent self-loathing or as complicated as a heap of paranoid delusions. We're all hiding some inner demon we'd rather not display or talk about, and pretending we're as normal as apple pie.

It's good that more and more people are finding the courage to break the silence and reveal their personal agonies. Celebrities in particular are confessing to their eating disorders, acute anxiety, crippling depression or secret fears. And that encourages the rest of us to be equally candid.

I think my father had a bucket-full of inner demons but he never talked about them. He felt he had to be the tough, resilient, dependable head of the household and must never show vulnerability or weakness. We might have had a closer relationship if he'd been able to expose himself more.

I've blogged in the past about my many neuroses and hang-ups due to my dysfunctional parenting, boarding school bullying etc etc. I've managed to have a fulfilling life despite all the inner snarl-ups, and I feel better for revealing so much private turmoil. Bottling it all up is dangerous - sooner or later something has to give and it won't be pretty.

As the old saying goes, Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.

28 comments:

  1. I agree that all of us have some scars. My only addition to that observation is the variation in the number of scars and also the intensity of the memory. Many handle these scars quite well and live well adjusted lives as I do.

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    1. Ramana: True, individuals vary in their ability to deal with traumatic experiences. Some manage to shrug them off, others are quite devastated by them.

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  2. I was just talking about this to a friend on Twitter yesterday. You just never know what someone else is dealing with when you talk to them but it seems like we are all dealing with something.

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    1. Mary: Someone can seem quite calm and unflappable, until you discover there's some huge personal flaw they struggle to overcome.

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  3. "I've never met a strong person with an easy past."

    That's one of my favorite quotes. A good reminder that some people use their negative past experiences as motivation. "Rocket fuel!" is a phrase I use a lot now when things get challenging. It means keep my values in mind and use the emotional energy generated to do something constructive. It's clearly not for everyone, but it works for me. It did take a lot of work when I was younger figuring it out. The best time I've ever spent.

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    1. Jean: I like the quote. And I agree, negative experiences can indeed be rocket fuel if you look at them in the right way.

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  4. the last two lines of your post says it all.
    "As the old saying goes, Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always."
    it makes me think of what the Dalai Lama is to have said when asked what religion he practiced. he simply said "my religion is kindness."
    there have been so many billions of killings in the name of God and other religious deities. but simple Kindness? what a wonderful way to walk in this world!

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    1. Tammy: It's easy to forget that other people may not be as happy as they appear to be. And yes, the need for kindness is often overlooked as people scramble for money or power or success.

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  5. lately I've been faced with others' devastating pain, two individuals, today and yesterday and I am so very grateful that they trust me enough to share their wounded selves with me. One I thought would be dead by the time I got there.
    I am stronger in my broken places and I believe others see that, it is fine to heal ourselves but I really believe we need to pass that on to others.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. www: I know you've had a lot of help to deal with some of your weaknesses, and that you're stronger as a result. You've certainly been through a lot of painful experiences.

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  6. Wow, I so agree with you. Several years ago, I came to the conclusion that every family has its 'challenges.' We meet people and think, wow, they really have it together, but scratch the surface and you find out there is something challenging in their life.

    And though I am not going into it here, on my Pics & Pieces blog, people read the posts labeled 'childhood' and think I had a wonderful life. And there are parts of it I would not change for anything, but boy there are some things that I will never get totally over.

    Also, one thing I say a lot is 'Kindness never hurts.' Again, not that I am perfect...I get irritated.

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    1. Rose: Families tend to keep only the positive mementos of childhood - the smiley photos, the exam certificates etc. The negative things are carefully swept under the carpet.

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  7. We all have baggage
    But not everyone has the self awareness to cope with it
    There are just levels of awareness and coping

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    1. John: Indeed. Some people have very advanced self awareness and coping mechanisms, others none at all.

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  8. Mine is crippling social anxiety. That's why I love this on-line world. Even here it took me a long time to reveal myself as flawed.

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    1. Linda: I also have a problem with social anxiety. Encounters with other people are always a bit awkward and embarrassing. I'm not one of those people who can just chatter away effortlessly.

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  9. How amazing, what we know and yet the world is not a kinder place.

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    1. Joanne: All that knowledge and experience goes for a burton when people are determined to be rude and abusive.

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  10. My oldest daughter and I talk about dysfunctional families quite often, now that she's dealing with her own in-law issues. She's impressed, knowing what she knows now about what I dealt with regarding my in-laws, that I never talked trash about any of them in front of my kids. Sometimes, you suck it up for your kids' sake so that they can have a normal childhood that you didn't have.

    Back to topic: I feel fortunate that I always had great friends in every stage of life that I could talk to, which was its own form of counseling. I hope I did the same for them.

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    1. Bijoux: I think my parents did much the same. They never complained about relatives even though some of them were obnoxious.

      You're lucky to have had good friends when you needed them. Having to deal with tough situations on your own can be heavy-going.

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  11. If celebs and high profile people can talk with complete honesty about their difficulties and if they can help others by doing so, I'm all for it.

    I am deeply opposed to people talking about their mild shyness, nervousness, stupid obsessions or difficult events as though they are mental illnesses. Things like PTSD, anxiety, OCD, depression or eating disorders are serious illnesses and create very severe problems for suffers. In the days when we had less awareness of mental illness we certainly got a lot of things wrong but now we minimise the genuine suffering people experience because we all like to label ourselves with psychiatric terms

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    1. Kylie: Jenny and I totally agree with you about people treating their minor neuroses like serious illnesses. Also about how that minimises genuine suffering. Like people who can't tell the difference between a depressing sequence of events and full-blown, overwhelming clinical depression.

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  12. I always try to be kind. Sometimes I think I'm a soft muppet, but what-ho.
    Sx

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    1. Ms Scarlet: We should all be soft muppets as much as possible. Always better than being a heartless sod.

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  13. For so many generations personal secrets prevailed and now they’re all revealed. At least we now know we’re all screwed up in one way or another and life’s challenge is coping with all our rinky dinks as you say. I guess what matters is how we deal with the issues.

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    1. Joared: Exactly, the challenge now is not so much revealing our deepest secrets but working out how to cope with them and keep them from sabotaging our lives.

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  14. Life has never been perfect or kind to anyone. One might feel that the other is living life to the fullest. You never know Nick, they too have their share of agony in life and personal scars hiding beneath their cheerful demeanour. I must say, people who can handle misery with ease and willpower are the real winners.

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    1. Andrea: Indeed, people who can handle misery without going to pieces are remarkable.

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