Depression is often the classical biochemical imbalance, often brought on by hardship or incredibly difficult circumstances, and unfair thoughts, stories, and attributions about oneself. It’s the perfect storm of these elements, and more, that collide and collude to bring us to our knees in a bout of mental illness.
One of the key themes of such a personal crisis of vulnerability is being caught between feeling misunderstood and feeling guilty—defending ourselves to set the record straight or withdrawing when we’re feeling misunderstood, and later apologising (out of guilt) or feeling shame for having ‘overreacted’.
When we’re in a better place of mental health, feeling misunderstood isn’t quite as keenly felt, or we don’t sweat it as much. But when we’re vulnerable, we’re much more sensitive which just stands to reason.
Of course, being sensitive to feeling misunderstood is something of a personality shadow many of us empathic individuals share. It’s one of the key markers of the HSP, the highly sensitive person—which is not a slight against the person.
In times past, in the toughen-up age, society had little tolerance for the HSP in a person, but society also was a harder place for those with mental ill-health, and these days, especially, mental health issues are just so prevalent.
These days society acknowledges that telling people to toughen up increases the risk of suicide.
These days we acknowledge how tough life is, especially given we live in about as uncertain a time as we ever have. There are just so many existential threats; war, economic crises, climate change to name just three. But there is also a myriad of personal and interpersonal factors that also leave people feeling exposed.
When it comes to being stuck in the cycle between feeling misunderstood and feeling guilty, what can be done to strike the balance?
First, accept that when feeling vulnerable mentally and emotionally, feeling guilt, shame, and feeling misunderstood come with the territory.
Learning to be gentler with ourselves in both our response and our response to our response is key.
Layering guilt over guilt only serves to layer shame over shame, when the alternative would be to sit in the moment and simply acknowledge, “Gee, I’m not at my best at present, but I’m doing my best, and that’s okay.”
Underneath many of our guilt attributions is a story or more that we subconsciously tell ourselves. “You shouldn’t have done it like that!” “What were you thinking.” “Oh, wow, we’re here in THIS again; when will you ever learn?” These judging thoughts are based in stories of perfection that can never truly be realised in our lives.
It would be better to just sit in those moments, and neither defend ourselves nor judge ourselves. If only we sat there in a third response, which is to just sit and empty ourselves of both defence and judgment, we might feel a little less triggered at those most horrendous of times.
This is not to say that we ought to feel guilty or inadequate or judge ourselves for having failed in doing this so many times. I think we all know how that works. No, that would defeat the purpose and would illustrate why the opportunity beckons.
There’s no shame in getting things wrong, and indeed there’s great strength shown in not judging ourselves when we’ve messed up yet again. It’s the concept that self-recrimination serves nobody.
Photo by Michael Shannon on Unsplash
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