Why you can’t just ‘get over it’

One thing that often angers me, is the issue of people being told they must ‘just get over it’ — whatever ‘it’ is. In these moments, I need to pray; to stop myself from saying anything untoward.

People who have complex problems
that involve grief
cannot ‘just get over it’.

And they’re not weak or problematic or less-than for the problems they have. They more ought to be revered.

Sometimes the ‘it’ is a loss, where grief lingers in them for years. Although we learn to manage, many griefs we take to our graves with us. Other times it can be a special case of abuse where forgiveness is impossible. Yes, even (especially) for Christians. Another time it is raised is within addiction or temptation, where a person simply cannot resolve a position or change themselves. And of course, there is a growing phenomenon of chronic pain. Many, many problems in life cannot be ‘gotten over’.

One of the most frustrating facts about grief — and one can argue grief is part of all these above — is that we cannot control it. When a person is in a position where they cannot shake something, and they are told to ‘get over it’ they are not being helped.

The person who is telling someone to ‘get over it’ is the one that has the problem. Somehow, they either lack the life experience or the emotional composure to contain the person before them.

This is why trained counsellors are so good at what they do; they can readily accept another person’s experience and perception. Indeed, they must. It is the other person’s truth that they are working with. They have worked through much of their own mess so they can bear another person’s mess.

Everyone, however, is called the care. Everyone has the responsibility not to harm others. And when people are told ‘just get over it’ — even if in tactful ways — damage is done in the healing process. Many people who genuinely think they’re helping by saying words that mean ‘just get over it’ never recognise how much of a setback they place before a vulnerable person doing their best to overcome a massive issue. None of us have the ability to weigh what another person is carrying.

If we were to tell someone to ‘just get over it’,
it’s more our anxiety speaking than good advice.

The paradox is, nobody wants to just get over it more than the person who is ailing. Anyone in deep grief through loss or abuse/trauma or chronic pain or other is desperate to get to a place where they’re genuinely over it.

They themselves have tried numerous things, in many cases dozens if not hundreds of ways, to resolve the malady that seems to possess them. Nobody wants peace more than those of us who have suffered for years to resolve something that feels irresolvable.

But to simplify seriously mysterious and complex issues
such as the healing of grief is folly!

Anyone that is hoping to help a person ought to recognise that human beings are usually the problem in helping human beings to heal from the things that human beings have caused and created.

If anything, if you’re a person trying to genuinely assist someone who has been struggling with something for years, do some of these things:

Dignify their journey. Listen in for the difficulties they have endured. Empathise with every effort they have made. When you feel you have some advice to give, pause a moment and stop yourself. Before you say anything, pray to God for the exact time to say it, and for the briefest way of conveying it. But don’t add to their burden! Then, begin listening again. If you do these things, you may find the person will be helped, despite your own efforts to speak wisdom into their life.

The reason someone will be helped by doing these innocuous things is the Holy Spirit has a chance to work when we get out of the way.

Maybe, just maybe, the person who
‘cannot get over it’ has experienced wisdom
that we do not yet possess. Lean in and learn.

It is the person who has had to bear
what they could not get over
who can bear for others
what they cannot get over.

~

It’s in receiving validation for an interminable situation
that a person may eventually learn to endure it.

Photo by Orlova Maria on Unsplash