Day 21: Permission to Complain

Oof, another evening writing.

I need to get back into walking the dogs and then writing right after whatever lands in my brain.

This expectation of using that smae brain at night is going to backfire if I don’t get it under wraps.

What I thought about on the walk this morning was allowing yourself to complain.

I transported back in time to when my boys were less than 3 years old. I was on a call with my bff from high school who was telling me about her son’s 7th cranial surgery that she just scheduled. I was really struggling because my youngest didn’t sleep much. I felt so off.

But, I didn’t allow myself to complain because who would be that obnoxious to do so when their bff was dealing with something so major.

It wasn’t until a couple years later that she told me she felt bad for how tough I had it. Her boys had a bigger age gap and by the time her second came around, she had more of a grasp on the older one. When she mentioned how difficult it must have been to have 2 under 2, I realized I should have shared with her. She was my safe person and because of her circumstances, I kept it all in.

Keeping silent resulted in lots of crying in the stairwell and feelings of desperation. We’re not meant to live like that. With everything bottled up inside our brains.

Also, we’re not meant to bitch and groan all the time to every person unfortunate enough to be within hearing distance. I’ve definitely known people like that and it always amazes me that they don’t see their own involvement in their misery.

When we share with peers what we are struggling with, it helps to remove the charge from the situation. Sometimes all you need is someone to witness the difficulty you are experiencing. Maybe they can commiserate, help you solve the problem, or just remind you that the situation isn’t permanent.

Suffering in silence only prolongs, and likely worsens, the pain.

Find your people, paid professionals or not, and start releasing some of the pent up emotion. It will help.