We all experience pain. We lose friends, family, and dreams, working to value and care for what we can. In a perfect world, we find comfort in these joys, holding onto our beacons of light when the world feels too dark. This drives us to do better – to be better – over time as we experience pain and loss. Ideally, we learn our lessons as our lives constantly get closer to how we want to live.
In reality, however, our world also comes with distractions. Instead of facing my pain, I can open Facebook. I can watch TV to avoid thinking about where I fall short of my own ideals, never sitting with that pain. When I can avoid the pain this easily, why would I choose to face it? However, only through facing it can I grow from my experiences.
This results in many of us diving into our phones as soon as our thoughts start to get uncomfortable. Instead of feeling lonely, isolated, and anxious, we can get slight dopamine hits from Facebook and Reddit. As a result, our lives start to feel monotonous, rushing past us. Days disappear where we can’t remember accomplishing anything, or any moments for which we feel true pride and joy. This can create a painful sense of guilt and shame, which in turn sends us back to our distractions – a vicious cycle.
Trauma only makes this harder. Our lives need to feel like a coherent story for us to move forward, yet our brains cannot integrate traumatic experiences into this story. As a result, traumatic experiences sit with us, tiny moments waiting to resurface and create pain in us. Without a consistent story or view of myself to hold onto, I might feel quite tempted just to jump into my distractions to avoid facing this chronic pain.
Drinking, video gaming, and other forms of isolation can result from this. As these distractions become more and more common, we build habits. These feel even harder to escape. As our lives turn into long lists of habits, life loses even more meaning and we may grow depressed. Life feels like just running through the motions, waiting for those short moments of peace when we can find our distractions.
Existence requires suffering. While it hurts, pain offers us opportunities to grow and refine ourselves into who we actually want to be. Pain pushes us to connect with others for support and with ourselves for self acceptance. Facing that pain instead of running from it helps us feel truly alive.
In therapy, I can help you sit with this pain. We work together to process painful moments, integrating them into the story of you, allowing you to heal. When you can do this in therapy, you can connect with a part of yourself that may feel ignored and avoided most of the time. Once you can make these connections alone, you can move toward true self acceptance. Attune with yourself in the presence of your significant other and the two of you may experience a profoundly beautiful understanding.