There are some experiences which it can be very hard to talk about. They can feel so mad and crazy that just accepting that they happened can be difficult in and of itself. For a, mostly, rational person like me the 'inexplicable' is an odd thing to deal with. Or possibly the better way to phrase it is the 'inexpressable'.
There are times in life when words can only get you so far. I spend my days trying to put complicated things into words. It's my job. To explain things that are sometimes highly complex to people so that they can understand them, or so that their solicitor can understand, or a judge. And to a certain extent in writing this blog I am trying to do the same thing. To put difficult complex emotional experiences into words so that people can understand what someone with depression feels and fights against. (Although I reiterate that I can't speak to what is happening in other people's heads; I only have direct access to mine!)
It is also fair to say that I find it helps me to be able to express things in words, or systems, or diagrammatic terms. My brain deals with them better that way. It is a way for me to get a better grip on what is happening to me.
But it has become more and more apparent to me that there are irrational things in this world; the most irrational being those things called emotions. And I'm not very good at those!
Yesterday I tried to do something new. I let myself feel. My grandfather passed away around this time last year, and I personally found it a very traumatic and upsetting experience at the time. Although I didn't let myself feel truly upset at the time. So yesterday afternoon when I started to have flashbacks (by which I mean vivid images in my head, so that I couldn't concentrate on work or focus on what was going on around me) I decided that this time I needed to let myself cry. I wanted to let myself get upset and actually feel what was going on.
I just never expected the emotional storm that followed.
Once I had started to cry I couldn't stop the inexpressible pain that I felt. Although the word 'pain' doesn't really describe it properly either. It was overwhelming. It was indescribable. And feeling like that was scary. I tried my hardest to talk to people about it but I couldn't explain it. There were no words adequate to describe what was going on. And that was when I started panicking - because I couldn't verbalise the experience in any way.
A large number of you may be thinking 'well, welcome to the human race!' I know lots of people who struggle with emotions and can't express them. And being English probably doesn't help!
But what happened afterwards has been the strangest thing of all. I slept more soundly than I have in weeks. I now feel like a weight has lifted and my mind feels freer. I feel a lot more settled.
Again I can't explain it! But maybe, just maybe, feeling that awful needed to happen so that I could let go of it and feel better afterwards. And maybe, just maybe, actually feeling things that are irrational needs to happen in order to feel human again.
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